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THE CLASH 



The CLASH ! 

A STUDY IN 
NATIONALITIES 



BY 



WILLIAM HENRY 
MOORE 




NEW YORK 

E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 

681 FIFTH AVENUE 



f~^ 



COPYRIGHT, CANADA, 1918 

BY J. M. DENT & SONS, Limited 

TORONTO 



Pirst Bdition September, 1918. 
Second Bdition November, 1918. 
Third Bdition November, 1918. 
Fourth Bdition December, 1918. 
Fifth Bdition January, 1919. 
Sixth Bdition February, 1919. 
Seventh Bdition March, 1919. 



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■r 






PRINTED IN CANADA 



TO MY FATHER 
JAMES BEACH MOORE 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTEB PAGE 

Introduction . . . . ix 

I Is There French-Canadian Nation- 
ality? . .... 3 

II Britain's Way and the Other 

(Britain's) . . . . 14 

III Britain's Way and the Other 

(the Other) ... 28 

IV The Ontario That Was Carved Out 

of Quebec .... 43 

V Race Superiority ... 60 

VI The Trade Argument ... 82 

VII Education .... 99 

VIII Not Inferior— Different . . 125 

IX The Seat of Trouble . . .146 

X Beneath the Surface of Things . 169 

XI The Futility of Force . .190 

XII A Study in Parallels . . .211 

XIII Homogeneity and Something Better 234 

XIV Tolerance 250 

XV French Canada and the War . 267 

XVI In Review . . . .293 

vii 



THE INTRODUCTION 

The last page of this book's manuscript had 
been placed in the printers' hands when the daily- 
press announced that the army had been called 
upon to quell the violence of a mob protesting in 
the City of Quebec against the enforcement of 
the Military Service Act. The press emphasised 
the gravity of the situation by head-lines that 
reached half-way across the page. Bonnett and 
I read the news together as we hurried, as fast 
as a suburban train hurries these days, toward 
"Fairport Farm." Bonnett was intent upon re- 
pairing winter ravages, laid bare by spring 
temperature; and I, armed (literally) with a mass 
of pamphlets and reference books, upon comply- 
ing with the publisher's request for an Intro- 
duction. 

"It's a bad business," said Bonnett, referring to 
the mob's defiance of law. 

"Shocking," I agreed. 

"And yet it is an ill wind that blows no good," 
remarked Bonnett reflectively. "Now all Eng- 
lish-Canadians will be at last united against the 
French. Those who have attempted to defend 
them will surely be convinced that they were in 
the wrong." 

"But all French-Canadians are not opposed to 

ix 



X INTRODUCTION 

the enforcement of the Military Service Act," 
I expostulated. "The French-Canadian leaders 
have said law^ must be obeyed, and the great body 
of sentiment within French Canada is in favour 
of its being obeyed." 

" 'One language, one school, one flag' : that's my 
motto," said Bonnett. 

Sincerely I admitted the necessity of having one 
flag for all Canada, and as sincerely sought to con- 
vince Bonnett that neither in the happenings of 
the past nor in the reasonings of the present, could 
justification be found for the contention that "The 
One Flag" was in danger through the existence of 
two languages and two schools. "An English-Ca- 
nadian Tory mob — presumably Protestant — once 
burnt down the Canadian Parliament Buildings," 
I told him. "Yet it would be unfair, as a result 
of that incident, to charge English-Canadian 
Protestant Tories with disloyalty. As a result of 
the withdrawal of a preference which the United 
Kingdom had been giving to Canadian products, 
many prominent English-speaking Canadians — 
and Protestants — signed, in 1849, a manifesto for 
annexation to the United States. They were not 
insignificant men who thus strove to pull down 
the Union Jack on Canadian soil. On the list 
you will find the names of D. L. Macpherson, 
who subsequently became Lieutenant-Governor 
of Ontario; J. Rose, who afterwards, as Sir John 
Rose, became Minister of Finance in the Cabinet 
of Sir John A. Macdonald; and J. J. C. Abbot, 



INTRODUCTION xi 

who, as Sir John Abbot, became Prime Minister 
of a Conservative Administration. It vs^ould be 
absurd to interpret their action as expressing the 
will of their co-religionists and compatriots." 

These things and many other politically bad 
things did I rake from the past in an effort to 
convince Bonnett that the makers of mistakes had 
not all been born to the French language and 
reared in Catholic schools. 

"This country must remain British," said he. 

"Few will question that statement. But surely 
a second language and a second school are not 
inconsistent with British principles. 'English 
Protestant' is not, as some would have us believe, 
a synonym for 'British.' None will doubt the plain 
truth that men may speak the English language 
and attend a Protestant Church without being 
British; while others may speak the French lan- 
guage, attend the Roman Catholic Church, and 
be stoutly British. Please remember that the 
English language and the Protestant religion are 
not the distinguishing jewels of the British 
Empire. There are far more of the English 
tongue, and far more of Protestant faiths in the 
United States than in all Greater Britain; and 
yet the United States is not British. If we are 
to believe our Whittaker, only one English-speak- 
ing man in three is a Britisher, and only one 
Britisher in six is a Protestant. We who live 
under the protection of the Union Jack are of no 
particular race: we are of all races; we are of 



xii INTRODUCTION 

no particular language: we are born to all lan- 
guages; nor are we of any particular Church: for 
in Greater Britain, God is worshipped after the 
manner of all Churches. The word 'British' in 
the sense of nationality, expresses a 'super-nation- 
ality,' incorporating without weakening the vari- 
ous nationalities which compose the humanity of 
the British Empire. Therein lies the genius." 

"This country must be English-speaking and 
Protestant," doggedly maintained Bonnett. 

"Perhaps you will admit that the English na- 
tionality and the Protestant Church are admir- 
able — only to the extent of the virtues they repre- 
sent. Further, you may admit — nay, Bonnett, 
you may be willing to insist — that their crowning 
excellence lies in their adherence to the principle 
of freedom. While English-speaking people and 
Protestants are actually only a small minority 
within the heterogeneous British Empire, they are 
in control of its destinies. Why? Is it not be- 
cause men of other tongues and other religions 
have believed in and relied upon their sense of 
justice. The success of the Britannic Empire 
has been only in proportion to the extent of the 
good-will which has pervaded the peoples, who, 
of different tongues and of different religions and 
of different nationalities, constitute its population. 
Destroy that spirit, substitute for it the doctrine 
that English Protestants are a ruling caste, or that 
in each self-contained part of the Empire the 
strong may compel the weak to surrender their 



INTRODUCTION xiii 

individuality f then that which is British loses its 
essence — only an impermanent shell remains" 

"Ordinarily you might be right," replied Ben- 
nett. "But in these days men must protect their 
own. The priests are behind the troubles in Que- 
bec and Ireland, the hierarchy is behind the priest 
and the Pope is behind the hierarchy. What- 
ever may have been involved at the commence- 
ment, the issue is now largely religious. The Pope 
is unfriendly to the Allies, and we must, in self- 
defence, curtail *he power of his Church and 
schools in Canada." 

"I am glad you have put the thing so bluntly, 
Bonnett. This is a day of plain speech. Hav- 
ing talked over the French-Canadian question 
with many people these several months, I find 
there are others who think as you do, although 
for the most part they express themselves by in- 
nuendoes and more or less indelicate insinuations. 
Now, let me ask you one or two pertinent ques- 
tions. Why do you say the Pope is unfriendly 
to the Allies?" 

"Because he is friendly to the Central Powers," 
answered Bonnett. 

"Upon what grounds do you make that state- 
ment?" 

"It is to be expected," replied Bonnett; "since 
Austria has the last word in electing the Pope." 

"It is true that at one time Austria had the power 
of vetoing the nomination of one cardinal, but that 
power no longer exists. In 1904, Pius X, as a 



xiv INTRODUCTION 

result of the Rampolla affair, suppressed all right 
of veto or exclusion on the part of secular gov- 
ernments. Further, any cardinal accepting from 
his government the charge of proposing a veto, 
is, by that act, excommunicated." 

Bonnett smiled incredulously, apparently believ- 
ing me to be the misinformed dupe of some de- 
signing priest, probably a Jesuit. 

"Mistrust not the source of my information, 
Bonnett; it is but the Encyclopedia Britannica." 

"Austria is a Catholic country," asserted Bon- 
nett defiantly. 

"There are not nearly as many Catholics in 
Austria as there arc in the Allied countries; and, 
for that matter, there are are not nearly as many 
Catholics in all the Central Countries as there are 
in the Allied Countries. If the Pope's sympathy 
is swayed by weight of numbers, then it is with 
the Allies, with a force of nearly two to one. 
However, let us proceed to another phase of the 
situation. I presume you, like most people, are 
of the opinion that Germany pushed the Haps- 
burg Government into the war, and has repeat- 
edly intrigued and exerted influence to keep it 
there. Englishmen, until the verge of the war, 
were on friendly terms with Austrians, whereas 
we were bound some day to have a rupture with 
Germans." 

To this Bonnett assented, and I continued: 
"Germany is Protestant; surely the Pope is not 
supporting its prestige 1" 



INTRODUCTION xv 

"But Germany has a large number of Roman 
Catholics," suggested Bonnett. 

"Let us be exact; the 'Statesmen's Annual' 
(1916) gives Germany's population as 61.6 per 
cent. Protestant, and 36.7 per cent. Roman Catho- 
lic. But let me ask another question. Are you 
not of the opinion that the most virulent part of 
Germany is — " 

"Prussia," said Bonnett, as I paused for an 
answer. 

"And Prussia is overwhelmingly Protestant," I 
added. "If you really are anxious for the truth, 
do not stop with remembering that Austria has 
more Roman Catholics than the British Isles. 
Remember also that Germany has more Protes- 
tants than England, Scotland, and Wales com- 
bined. Now mistake me not, Bonnett, I am not 
attempting anything beyond an analysis of the 
reasons why the Pope could not possibly be sup- 
porting the Central Powers." 

"But he said nothing against the outrages in 
Belgium; made no protest against the destruction 
of life and property." 

"That is simply untrue. The Pope publicly 
protested against the invasion of Belgium. Could 
he have done more? Do you know of Cardinal 
Mercier?" I asked. 

"Yes," replied Bonnett. "He is the Church- 
man who stood boldly against the German atro- 
cities." 

"There can be no question of Mercier's informa- 



xvi INTRODUCTION 

tion as to the real situation. He must know all 
there is to know. There can be no doubt as to 
his loyalty and integrity. Mercier has been, and 
is, the big cleric of the war. And if a cardinal 
can give a certificate of character to a Pope, Mer- 
cier gave one to Benedict XV in addressing his 
people after his return from the Vatican. He 
said: *He' (the Pope), 'understands and shares our 
anxieties concerning our religious liberties and 
our patriotic feelings. He was good enough to 
sum up his profound thought on your behalf, 
which I received most eagerly, in the inscription 
traced by his own august hand beneath his por- 
trait; I here transcribe it for you in all simplicity: 

" 'To our revered brother, Cardinal Mercier, 
Archbishop of Mechlin. We give the Apostolic 
Blessing with all our heart, assuring him that We 
are always with him, and that We share his grief 
and his anguish, inasmuch as his cause is our 
cause.' " 

Bonnett had no comment to make upon this 
statement which, by the way, I read from a 
pamphlet entitled "The Pope and the War," 
by Neil McNeil, the Archbishop of Toronto. I 
continued : 

"Tell me, Bonnett — and I have asked others the 
same question — what you would have the Pope 
do that he has not done? He has no army. Catho- 
lics, like Protestants, are divided in their alle- 
giance in the Great War. Would you have him 
instruct Catholics to oppose the Central Powers? 
Such an instruction would be tantamount to an 



INTRODUCTION xvii 

order for the revolt of Catholics within, let us 
say, Austria. That might please us now, but if 
the Pope could cause a revolt in Austria, it would 
be equally within his power to cause a revolt in 
England or Canada, or in the United States. And 
that would be distressing. We, who are not of the 
Roman Catholic Church, upon the success of a 
Catholic revolt in the Central Powers, would 
insist, for our own future protection, upon the 
curtailment of the Pope's power to repeat the 
performance." 

"Do you mean to say there is no significance to 
be attached to the fact that Roman Catholic Que- 
bec and Roman Catholic Ireland have both pro- 
tested against conscription and both have shown an 
unwillingness to provide volunteers for the army?" 

"The farmers of Ontario have protested against 
conscription," I observed, "and they are, for the 
most part, Protestant." 

^ Bonnett lighted his pipe unconcernedly. Plainly 
my answer was unsatisfying. 

"Australia voted against conscription, and 
Australia is 75 per cent. Protestant," I added. 

Bonnett puffed at his pipe apparently quite 
unshaken in his conclusion that the situations in 
Quebec and Ireland were identical and due to 
Papal direction. I turned to my paper thinking 
the conversation at its end. 

"You must know that the priests are leading 
the people in Quebec and in Ireland," said Bonnett 
after a few minutes of silence. "Do you mean to 

2 



xviii INTRODUCTION 

say that they are acting without instructions in 
embarrassing the Allies?" 

"Have you followed the domestic situation in 
Poland and Roumania?" I asked. "There, hun- 
dreds of thousands — and I think I am right in 
saying millions — of Catholics, and many priests 
as well, are protesting against Germany and 
Austria. Is the Pope behind those protests? 
or are they due to local conditions? No I Bon- 
nett, the facts are all in favour of the contention 
that the Catholics of Quebec and of Ireland, like 
Protestant farmers of Ontario and many Protes- 
tants of Australia, and the Catholic peasants of 
Poland and of Roumania, are acting from other 
than religious motives. If there be in allied 
countries any division on religious grounds, it 
is because those of your way of thinking have in- 
sisted upon its existence. The gravest danger to 
the Allies is the expression of suspicion and the 
not infrequent reproach of disloyalty against 
Catholic people. I do not say that these things 
are inspired by German agents with the object of 
destroying the unity of the Allies, but I do say 
that an anti-Popery campaign must necessarily be 
pleasing to the war lords of Prussia." 

"But the Pope might have protested against the 
outrages in Belgium, against the burning of Lou- 
vain, against the bombardment of Belgian and 
French cathedrals," insisted Bonnett. 

"Louvain is a Catholic university. It does not 
require much knowledge of human nature to con- 



INTRODUCTION xix 

elude that the Pope is even more deeply affected at 
its loss than you, my dear Bonnett. They were 
Catholic cathedrals that were bombarded; they 
were Catholic monasteries that were pillaged ; they 
were Catholic clergy who were dispossessed and 
Catholic nuns who were maltreated. They were 
mainly a Catholic people who were despoiled and 
driven from their homes in Flanders and France. 
No, Bonnett, it is incredible that the head of the 
Catholic Church should not syn^pathise deeply 
with the Catholic civilian population that has 
borne the brunt of atrocious Prussian brutality." 
Bonnett simply smiled incredulously; and, in 
the hope of having him see things as they are I 
turned to another side of the question. "I pre- 
sume you credit the Pope with a fair amount of 
intelligence and foresight, and a desire to main- 
tain the existence of the papacy. Tell me, please, 
can you see any future for a Vatican under Teu- 
tonic world-wide dominion? Is Kaiserism con- 
sistent with papacy? Does not the Kaiser him- 
self presume to be the Vicar of God, and, if we 
are to believe what we hear, sometimes proclaims 
himself a peer with God? ^The Statesmen's 
Annual', an English publication, is my authority for 
saying" (and I turned to a recent edition for con- 
firmation) "that 'the Jesuit Order is interdicted in 
all parts of Germany, and all convents and reli- 
gious orders, except those engaged in nursing the 
sick and purely contemplative orders, have been 
suppressed.' That is the Hun idea of 'entire 



XX INTRODUCTION 

liberty of conscience and complete equality among 
all religious confessions.' In the name of com- 
mon sense, is it believable that the Pope is intri- 
guing to have these conditions extended to Eng- 
land, to the United States, and to Canada? 

"The real explanation of the Pope's attitude in 
the War, lies in the fact, apparently little under- 
stood, that his jurisdiction is limited. The truth 
is that it is beyond his power to direct Catholics 
either to the Central Powers or the Allies. The 
Archbishop of Toronto has put the matter very 
simply before the public in these words: 

" 'The Pope never instructs us Catholics as to 
how we should vote at elections or how we should 
conduct military campaigns or what part we 
should take in wars. These things are all out- 
side his sphere of action. His duties have refer- 
ence to the moral and spiritual side of life.' " 

The train, stopping and starting, finally stop- 
ped at our suburban destination. Do I need to 
add that Bonnett proceeded to his work convinced 
that the Pope is intriguing on behalf of the Cen- 
tral Powers, that the weight of his influence is 
against the Allies, and that Catholic schools and 
the French language, have no proper place under 
the Union Jack in Canada? His mind had been 
made on the subject, and it was not to be unmade 
by facts. While willing to discuss the subject — 
most Irishmen are willing to discuss a subject — 
he frankly confessed that in his opinion this partic- 
ular matter was not to be determined by weight 
of evidence. Think not Bonnett a narrow sec- 



INTRODUCTION xxi 

tarian, a fanatical supporter of the tenets of some 
particular Church. I am sure he would be will- 
ing to admit that religion with him is a negative 
rather than a positive force, a political rather than 
a spiritual influence. He professes the broadest 
principles of toleration; but, in his opinion, 
Roman Catholics ought not to have their schools, 
and French-Canadians ought not to speak their 
language in Ontario, or for that matter in any 
part of Canada. 

There are many in this Province of Ontario 
who, with Bonnett, solidly and stubbornly refuse 
to have this "French-Canadian question" deter- 
mined upon its merits. They know only what 
they want to do and refuse to deliberate upon 
what they ought to do. Only the other day a man, 
having read the proof-sheets of this book, re- 
marked: "You have all the argument, but 'good, 
bad or indifferent,' the regulations restricting the 
use of the French language in Ontario must stand." 
And he was not a plumber. With many, race, 
national, and religious antagonisms, are regarded 
as natural. That there should be harmony in 
diversity is regarded as impossible. For them, 
heaven will not be Heaven unless it be conducted 
in their one language and according to the rights 
of their particular Church. 

No! Bonnett is not an unfamiliar figure. You 
may meet him on the trains, in the lodge-rooms 
and public corridors, wherever in fact the clash of 
nationalities is discussed. 



xxii INTRODUCTION 

I would not have the stranger to this Canadian 
question conclude that it is in any way an after- 
math of the war. The war only served to change 
(slightly) the argument of those who, like Bon- 
nett, resist French-Canadian pretensions through 
fear of Roman Catholic aggression. Nor would 
I have the stranger conclude that the question is 
solely religious. As we shall see, many other 
elements enter into it. But we ought not to an- 
ticipate the argument. 

I do not believe that all Canadians who speak 
English and say prayers in Protestant Churches 
are of Bennett's mind; are equally opposed to a 
decision of our difficulties by the weight of evi- 
dence. And in this belief, confident in the fair 
reasoning of my compatriots, I have set forth the 
facts which bid the major — and junior — nation- 
ality within Canada give to the minor — and 
senior — freedom. I am asking the reader to 
go with me farther than a suburban journey; 
am asking him to travel in lands with diverse 
nationalities, wherever civilisation is professed; 
am asking him to review the works of Toynbee, 
Muir, Rose, Burns, Buxton, Low, Zimmern, 
Acton, Robertson, Hazen, Hobhouse, and others, 
who, analysing nationality, have made it possible 
to study Canadian national problems in the light 
of the world's history. 

I would not do Bonnett an injustice. He is as 
sound in plumbing science as he is weak in politi- 
cal science. With experienced eyes, he ferreted out 
the exact spot from which our troubles arose. 



INTRODUCTION xxiii 

Fascinated — as most men are at the sight of others 
working — I watched Bonnett saw his way through 
floors and reaching, wrench in hand, into the 
darkness, deftly uncoupling and bringing before 
my eyes a frost-blown elbow. 

"No fault in the system?" I asked. 

"None," replied Bonnett. 

"No flaw in the elbow?" 

"It was sound." 

"An abnormal temperature has been created, 
and a part, perfectly capable of performing effi- 
cient service under natural conditions, has broken 
when subjected to the ensuing strain," I suggested. 

"That's it," said Bonnett. 

"The rest of the system was rendered useless. 
Destruction spread throughout the house. And 
the fault is the thing we must determine if 
we would prevent trouble for the future. The 
fault rests with those who created the abnormal 
condition." 

"Quite true," assented Bonnett. 

I am sure he was thinking merely of the broken 
joint, of my ruined ceilings and stained walls and 
of my negligent caretaker. But I was thinking 
of the national troubles of Canada and that sound 
part of our system of Confederation which is 
being subjected to abnormal strain, and of the im- 
mutability of the consequences resulting from the 
violation of the laws which ought to regulate man's 
relation to man. 
"Fairport Farm," 

Rouge, Ontario, July l8, igi8. 



THE CLASH 



CHAPTER I 

IS THERE FRENCH-CANADIAN NATIONALITY? 

Nationality! What is it? 

"When the scholar Casaubon was taken to the 
great hall of the Sorbonne and was told by his 
guide that on that spot discussions had been going 
on for several centuries, he asked 'Qu'a-t-on de- 
cide?* An equally pertinent question may be 
asked in the present instance without it being pos- 
sible to elicit an absolutely satisfactory reply. It 
is, indeed, no easy matter to explain in epigram- 
matic form an idea so complex as that of Nation- 
ality. Definitio est negatio." So writes Lord 
Cromer in the introduction to Arnold Toynbee's 
"The New Europe." 

Nationality is one of those strangely elusive 
mystic forces which men may discuss at length, 
and yet fail to define in succinct sentences. Like 
electricity, its force may be felt; its appearance 
described ; its sources traced ; but, when we attempt 
to pin it down with a definition, it escapes. And 
yet a clear knowledge of the subject is imperative, 
for the forces of nationality have always had an 
important part in establishing the fortunes of man- 
kind and, besides, are inextricably bound up in the 
underlying causes of the war. 

While we cannot define nationality satisfactorily, 

3 



4 THE CLASH 

we can set forth the factors that usually, but by no 
means always, enter into it. 

1. Ethnical identity, 

2. Identity of language, 

3. The unity of religion, 

4. Common economic interests, 

5. Habitation subject to common geographical 
conditions, 

6. Common history and traditions, 

7. A uniform theory of government. 
Canadians have a special interest in nationality 

and are under a special obligation to study it. Not 
only as participants in the war is it our duty to 
bear intelligently a part of the world's problem of 
nationalities ; but, in addition, we have to shoulder 
responsibility for right thinking in a domestic 
problem of nationality. Let us not refuse to ac- 
knowledge the gravity of our own situation. 
There are within Canada two nationalities, square- 
ly opposed on issues which men have always consid- 
ered fundamental. Canadians who are descendants 
of the men and women of the Old French Regime, 
complain that they have been deprived of legiti- 
mate claims to national expression in a state domin- 
ated by those who, mainly of English, Irish, and 
Scotch parentage, speaking the English language, 
may be called, although, of course, not quite cor- 
rectly, English-Canadians. The issues have to be 
squarely met. Peace is not obtainable so long as 
each group adheres to its present temper of "My 
own side, right or wrong." That is the highway 



FRENCH-CANADIAN NATIONALITY? 5 

towards destruction. Prejudice must be cast away 
and things seen as they are, if the country is to 
have harmony instead of dissension — and worse. 
And, as the old proverb runs, "Spiders might make 
silk if they could live in harmony with each other." 
Fortunately, there is now a voluminous literature 
on the relations of nationalities arising out of the 
war, from which we may get a light upon Cana- 
dian affairs and obtain a much-needed perspective. 

At first sight, allegiance to a common state 
appears to be the test of nationality; and in 
that sense the word is probably most frequently 
used. But the word nationality should not be con- 
fused with the word nation in the sense of a state. 
The state is the casing; the nationalities are the en- 
cased. The distinction is vital to an understanding 
of our subject. "What is a nation?" the great Kos- 
suth asked a Serb Member of the Hungarian Diet. 
"A race which possesses its own language, customs, 
and culture, and enough self-consciousness to pre- 
serve them," replied the Serb. "A nation must 
also have its own government," answered Kossuth. 
"We do not go so far," said the Serb, "one nation 
can live under several different governments, and 
again several nations can form a single state." 
"Both the Magyar and the Serb were right," com- 
ments the editor of "War and Democracy," who 
relates the conversation; "though the latter was 
speaking of 'nationality' and the former of 
'nation'." 

Have the French-Canadians then a nationality? 



6 THE CLASH 

That must be first decided. The existence of 
nationality must be established beyond the shadow 
of doubt ; for the mechanism of State ought not to 
be burdened with the duty of recognising two 
nationalities without adequate cause. The case for 
dual nationality must be clear and sound; its 
claims are not to be acknowledged merely for the 
asking. Let us then submit, not the claims of the 
French-Canadians as they have been presented, but 
the facts as revealed by history and common 
knowledge, to the tests which have been laid down 
in the literature of the subject. 

Ethnical identity, the French-Canadians have, 
and an identity rare in its solidarity. At the date 
of the Conquest, there were only some sixty thou- 
sand French in Canada — we may assume about 
thirty thousand of each sex — and mainly from 
their mating have been reared the nearly three 
million French-Canadians of to-day. Nor is that 
all : this ethnical identity goes back far beyond the 
settlement of Canada; for, as we shall see later on, 
the parent-stock came mainly from the same dis- 
tricts in Northwestern France. There has been 
comparatively little intermarriage with the other 
ethnical groups in Canada; we may regret the fact, 
but it has made for race solidarity. What peoples 
to-day have a better preserved ethnical identity? 
There is certainly nothing like it on this continent, 
and nothing more striking on the European Con- 
tinent. France has within its boundaries three 
well-defined races, as has Germany. The popula- 



FRENCH-CANADIAN NATIONALITY? 7 

tion of the United Kingdom is made up of several 
races, and much of the mixture is of comparatively 
recent compounding. The Jev^s are frequently 
held up as an example of race identity, but not 
even they have kept their blood purer than have 
the French-Canadians during the last three hun- 
dred years. 

The Frendh-Canadians have also a complete 
identity of language — another rare thing in the 
experiences of nationalities. To-day all the citi- 
zens of France are Frenchmen, and yet there are 
thousands in Northwestern France w^ho speak a 
language more Celtic than French; the Corsicans 
are of French nationality, but my friend, M. San- 
tini, tells me their tongue is more like that of Italy 
than of France. There are Alsatians and Lorrain- 
ers w^ho, proclaiming themselves of French nation- 
ality, speak nothing but German, as did their 
fathers before the days of 71. There is a Swiss 
nationality, much of it in Switzerland; and yet 
there are French, German, and Italian languages 
in Switzerland, all of them recognised in law, and 
a fourth which is unrecognised. When the Ger- 
man-speaking Swiss comes to America he is not a 
German, but, on the contrary, always a Swiss and 
proud of it. The Jews are said to have a nation- 
ality, but have only the thread of a common 
language ; they speak the polyglot tongues of com- 
merce. To-day the subjects of King George in- 
habiting England, Scotland, and Wales, may be 
said to have a common dominating nationality, and 



8 THE CLASH 

yet one out of every ten Welshmen speaks no Eng- 
lish, and thousands of Scotsmen tenaciously cling 
to Gaelic. There is a nationality in Ireland which, 
violently distinctive, is, curiously enough, com- 
pelled to denounce England, its arch-enemy, in 
England's language. There are Americans of the 
United States and Canadians of the non-French 
districts who have not mastered the tongues com- 
mon to the group to which they belong, and yet 
proclaim themselves of its nationality. Again, in 
our testing, have we found the French-Canadians 
distinctive in homogeneity? 

This brings us to that great influence in the rela- 
tions of mankind, religion. Mohammedanism has 
been called a nationality, as has Judaism, so closely 
are men bound together by the ties of church. 
Before the Reformation, religion was an even more 
important force than language, than race itself, 
in holding men together. National distinctions 
are modern when compared with religious distinc- 
tions. Religion was once the distinguishing group 
characteristic everywhere, and remains so to-day 
in India and several Eastern countries. Religion 
is still the deciding group factor in some sections 
of the Western world, as in South America, where 
the natives, on relinquishing their pagan religions 
for Christianity, are admitted into the fellowship 
of the dominant group. 

A force for unity, religion is also a force for 
dissension. A brief survey will show that in 
few nationalities is there a common Church. The 



FRENCH-CANADIAN NATIONALITY? 9 

Germans claim for themselves a high degree of 
nationality, yet 60 out of every 100 Germans 
are Protestants, while the remaining 40 are Roman 
Catholics, and bitter has been their opposition. 
France has a splendid nationality, yet is hopelessly 
divided on the subject of religion. The same may 
be said for Italy and Portugal. England has its 
divisions, as have Belgium and the United States. 
Spain is mainly Roman Catholic, but contains a 
large dissenting population. In Ireland, religion 
is practically the dividing line between the nation- 
alities. With the French-Canadians, there is prac- 
tical unanimity, for almost to the last man, woman, 
and child, they worship God at a common altar. 
While most nationalities are surviving in spite of 
religious dissensions, the French-Canadian nation- 
ality has within itself the strength that comes from 
approaching things spiritual in a common way, has 
the esprit de corps that comes from the association 
of its members in the wide range of charitable and 
social activities which in all communities and 
under all religions are conducted under the direc- 
tion of churches. 

For three hundred years, the French-Canadians 
have had a common history and common tradi- 
tions; for a hundred years and more they have 
been the exclusive guardians of those traditions. 
Theirs are the glorious voyages of Champlain, the 
discoveries of La Salle and La Verendrye, the 
battles of Frontenac and Dollard and the martyr- 
doms of Breboeuf and Lalement; theirs, the 
memory of free life in a wilderness and dangers 

s 



10 THE CLASH 

from a savage foe. That cannot be forgotten — 
and there are other things that are remembered: 
the struggles of past and present to maintain the 
French language and French culture on the North 
American Continent: in early days against the 
American colonists who revolted from Great Brit- 
ain, and later against the English-Canadians who 
would have all within the country welded into 
homogeneity. 

A few years after the Conquest, when the United 
States had established its power in the New World, 
the French of France gave up their fitful dreams 
of prestige in the New World. France closed her 
American book and opened a new one, and wrote 
"Africa" on the title page. Deserted, the French- 
Canadians grew up in the New World, accepting 
the theory of government and the economic con- 
ditions of their neighbours, but otherwise remain- 
ing islanders in a sea of continental Anglo-Saxon- 
Americanism. Insularity breeds stubbornness; it 
gave the Englishman his bull-dog tenacity. Like 
the Englishmen of England, forcing their nation- 
ality upon none, the French-Canadians are of one 
mind to hold fast to common traditions, and 
are inspired with common aspirations for the pre- 
sent and the future. That resolve is the stronger 
because of the oppression to which they believe 
they have been subjected, none the less oppression 
because it has been not of massacres as in Russia, 
but of slurs of inferiority, limitations in the school- 
room, the courts of justice and the halls of legisla- 
tion, as in Germany. 



FRENCH-CANADIAN NATIONALITY? 11 

Nationality has been called group personality, 
a group soul; in English it is "the spirit of Eng- 
land," in German "die Deutsche Seele," in France 
"I'ame de la France," in Belgium "I'ame Beige." 
Renan has called nationality "a soul and a spirit- 
ual principle, the resultant of a long historic past, 
of sacrifices and efforts made in common, and of a 
united will and aspiration in the present; to have 
done together great things in the past, to be minded 
to do great things in the present." The definition 
is good, and yet it leaves much unsaid of this strong, 
elusive, human force. In "Towards a Lasting 
Settlement," one of the interesting English war 
books, an attempt has been made to define national- 
ity: "It stands for the cultivation of those national 
habits of life and thought which are dearer to us 
than others because they are in a fuller sense 'our 
own' — just as family customs and family words 
have a peculiar savour for us, creating, as they do, 
a whole atmosphere, and calling up, without any 
need of explanatory speech, a hundred common 
memories and familiar ties." 

In these attempts at definition the united will 
to preserve is regarded as essential. That there is 
little French or little Spanish nationality in the 
United States to-day — as we are so often reminded 
in Canada — is because there was no will to pre- 
serve. If there be no Scotch nationality in the 
United Kingdom to-day, or only a remnant, it is 
because of lack of will to preserve; if there be a 
Celtic nationality in Ireland, it is because there 



12 THE CLASH 

has been and is, a will to preserve. And in Quebec, 
in Ontario, and Manitoba, the French-Canadians 
have displayed a tenacious will to preserve. The 
will to preserve: that is the force which must be 
constantly borne in mind by the student who would 
unravel the skeins of nationality. 

No matter the test to which it is submitted, the 
French-Canadian nationality emerges. It has a 
Church with sermons and services in a distinctive 
language, a literature, a daily press ; in short, self- 
consciousness and the means to preserve it. It may 
be fairly said to have attained the status of a 
national culture. The events of the war have 
made men keenly conscious of the importance of 
nationality and precise in their analysis of it. 
Among those who have followed the subject close- 
ly, is Arnold Toynbee who, in "The New Europe," 
tells us : "National culture means the conscious will 
to enjoy and increase this heritage through the med- 
ium of some particular language. It follows that a 
national culture, whenever it manifests itself, is as 
elemental a force as a national democracy, and that 
to fight against it is to fight against God. No alien 
culture may dispute its title." Strong words these, 
and remember they are not mine; they are the 
words of an Englishman versed in the conflicting 
forces of nationality, and applied to conditions 
awch as we find in Canada. 

But in seeking to limit French-Canadian cul- 
ture in Ontario, in Manitoba, or in any other sec- 
tion of the country once French, we are not only 



FRENCH-CANADIAN NATIONALITY? 13 

fighting "against God," as Toynbee puts it — a 
pretty large order — but also against the principle 
of freedom which Great Britain has said should 
regulate the lives of a people made British by the 
fortunes of war. 

Books o^ Reference 

Charles Roden Buxton and others, Towards a Lasting 

Settlement. Macmillan. 

C. Delisle Burns, The Morality of Nations. Putnam. 

J. Holland Rose, Nationality in Modern History. Mac • 
millan. 

Arnold Toynbee, The New Europe. Dent. 

Arnold Toynbee, Nationality and the War. Dent. 

Freidrich Nauman, Central Europe. Knopf. 

Felix Adler, The World Crisis and Its Meaning. Apple- 
ton. 

Ramsay Muir, Nationalism and Internationalism. 
Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 

Sydney Low and Others, the Spirit of the Allied Na- 
tions. Black. 

Hugo Munsterberg, Tomorrow. Appletons. 



CHAPTER II 

BRITAIN'S WAY AND THE OTHER 
(Britain^s) 

There are English, French, Germans, Italians, 
Russians, Turks — and the census officials alone 
know how many other kinds of men in Canada. 
All cannot have their languages recognised in law. 
Multi-lingualism is impossible; we should be re- 
peating the embarrassing experience of Babel. 
From that sound conclusion, the unsound deduc- 
tion has been made that multi-lingualism is the 
natural consequence of bi-lingualism. Admitting 
the existence of French-Canadian nationality, men 
have argued that its culture and individuality can- 
not be recognised without creating chaos. With 
equal force it might be argued that if I pay interest 
to the man who has a lien on my land, I shall some 
day have to pay interest to men who have advanced 
nothing on my land; if I give up my one-horse 
buggy for a two-horse democrat, some day I shall, 
like the drivers in a circus procession, be handling 
a six-in-hand. 

We have found the French-Canadians in posses- 
sion of all the attributes of nationality, including 
the all-important "will to preserve." We shall 
now find that the French-Canadians, in addition, 
have the rights of a people conquered by Great 

14 



BRITAIN'S WAY AND THE OTHER 15 

Britain; and under British ideals the national in- 
terests of the conquered are sacred. The French- 
Canadians are not to be dealt with as immigrants 
who come to a new country, ready and willing to 
throw oflf the old and take on the new — not in 
Ontario and Manitoba, for the country within 
these provinces was once theirs. That is British 
doctrine expressed in the often-used, much-abused 
words, "national freedom." Only a few genera- 
tions ago our ancestors — English and French — 
disagreed over certain matters, principally the 
claims of a lady named Maria Theresa to a Euro- 
pean throne, and when the war was over, English 
suzerainty had supplanted French in Canada. The 
fortunes of Maria are inconsequential when com- 
pared with those of the French-Canadians who 
had, as a result of the dispute, come under a state 
organisation new and strange. 

Much of our argument will surround the ques- 
tion which naturally arises : "To what rights are a 
conquered people entitled?" No one will suggest 
that they are not entitled, as individuals, to life. 
Not even barbarians will attempt to justify the 
wholesale slaughter of those who lose out in the 
fortunes of war; but are a conquered people en- 
titled to continue life as a people in the land which 
has been ceded? — are they entitled to continue the 
culture of their forefathers? — entitled to maintain, 
in fact, a national existence? 

There are two distinct views on the subject 
which, for want of better nomenclature, we may 



16 THE CLASH 

call '^Britain'i Way" and "The Other." I aafnc the 
one Britain^s way, because Britain has stood for it 
more than any other nation. Within it has lain her 
genius for empire. "Its 433 million inhabitants 
from Great Britain to Polynesia, from India and 
Egypt to Central Africa, are drawn from every 
division of the human race. Cut a section through 
mankind, and in every layer there will be a British 
citizen, living under the jurisdiction of British 
law." So writes Alfred E. Zimmern, one of Eng- 
land's foremost students of politics. Britain's suc- 
cess of Empire has been in proportion to Britain's 
preservation of the freedom of the nationalities 
within the Empire. Britain's treatment of the Ca- 
nadians after the conquest will serve to illustrate 
the application of this doctrine, and besides, it 
has a specific bearing upon the case in hand. 

The Quebec Act and the debates in the Imperial 
Parliament in the days of its passing, set forth 
many of the principles which the British Govern- 
ment declared ought to prevail in the government 
of Canada. Sir Edward Thurlow was the Attor- 
ney-General of Great Britain at the passing of the 
Quebec Act and upon his words we may safely — 
but need not solely — rely as to Britain's intention 
towards the French-Canadians after the Conquest. 
"You ought to change those laws only which relate 
to the French sovereignty, and in their place sub- 
stitute laws which should relate to the new sover- 
eign," he said from his place in Parliament; "but 
with respect to all other laws, all other customs 



BRITAIN'S WAY AND THE OTHER 17 

and institutions whatercf, which arc indif^co* tp 
the state of subjects and sovereign, humanity, jus- 
tice and wisdom equally conspire to advise you to 
leave to the people just as they were." These are 
plain words which should leave no misunderstand- 
ing in the minds of men. And they ought to remain 
fixed in the memories of men who believe that 
national understandings ought to be kept. 

There was no question about the legal right of 
Great Britain to limit the use of the French 
language and French culture in the colony that 
had become British, and if it be possible for a con- 
queror to force an alien tongue upon a conquered 
people, there was little doubt as to Great Britain's 
ability, since the French-Canadians had been aban- 
doned by the then decrepit government at Ver- 
sailles. The issue was a moral one, and as such it 
was decided. "I consider the right of conquest so 
little, and the right of human nature so much, that 
the former has little consideration with me," said 
the great Edmund Burke when debating the Que- 
bec Bill. "I look upon the people of Canada as 
coming, by the dispensation of God, under the 
British Government. I would have us govern it 
in the same manner as the all-wise disposition of 
Providence would govern it." No piece of Cana- 
dian legislation received the care of greater states- 
men than the Quebec Act, and throughout the 
debate over its provisions, the constant thought 
expressed was care for the interests of the French- 
Canadians. That was the first consideration. 



18 THE CLASH 

Two ways in the Canadian question were open to 
Great Britain at the time: freedom for a continu- 
ance of French culture and all that is implied in 
nationality; or a suppression — at least an attempt 
at it — and in its place a substitution of Anglicism. 
The way towards suppression lay ready at hand, 
namely, incorporation of the newly-acquired ter- 
ritory in one of the longer-held, nearby, Ameri- 
can colonies. They were all English-speaking and 
it was only reasonable to assume that in time the 
French would learn not only to speak English, but 
would acquire an English mentality. And Britain 
did not take that course. After reciting what might 
have been done, A. Wyatt Tilby, an English his- 
torian, tells us what actually was done. "Happily 
for the Empire, the British Government decided to 
act generously," he says. "They made no attempt 
to overwhelm the French by planting British set- 
tlers in Quebec; on the contrary, the absurd 
arrogance displayed by the few hundred English 
immigrants who entered the colony of their own 
accord was frequently restrained by the Imperial 
authorities . . . Nor were the old French cus- 
toms and laws of the province changed or inter- 
fered with more than was absolutely necessary; 
and the advice of those enthusiasts who believed 
that every British institution was of inestimable 
benefit and of universal application was sensibly 
rejected.'- 

Sentences were not incorporated into the Quebec 
Bill specifically granting the freedom of the 



BRITAIN'S WAY AND THE OTHER 19 

French language ; nor, for that matter, were there 
specific sentences granting the freedom of air. 
Without air, there could have been no continued 
life for the individual, and without language no 
continued life for the nationality. 

For several years after the Conquest all Canada 
remained French. The old inhabitants retained 
throughout the country, in what is now Quebec, 
Ontario, and Manitoba, which were practically 
the Quebec of that day, their language, and all 
that went to make up their nationality. They paid 
allegiance to a British sovereign instead of to a 
French sovereign; that was the principal change 
wrought in their condition by the Conquest. Brit- 
ain secured sovereignty; the French retained cul- 
tural freedom ; and the two were compatible. 

Such was Britain's spirit in the days of the Que- 
bec Act; such her application of it to an alien 
nationality. Has Britain grown less generous in 
her maturity? Can English-Canadians afford to 
be less generous in these days when freedom has 
become the watchword of civilisation? The answer 
to these questions brings us plumb against the 
underlying causes of the war. 

In 1918 Canada is fighting for freedom. All the 
doing, dying, suffering, mourning, all the soul- 
stirring tragedies of the war, the Great War itself, 
are only means to an end — freedom. "Win the 
War," has become the spiritual injunction of Cana- 
dians, but winning the war merely for the sake of 
a win, would be poor consolation. It is the cause 



20 THE CLASH 

for which the war is being fought that alone makee 
the sacrifices endurable, makes winning worth 
while. It is the idea behind the war, which makes 
a decisive issue imperative and makes peace 
upon compromise equivalent to defeat. As well 
might men have talked of peace parleys in the days 
of the American Civil War, while men and women 
were still slave-bound in the cotton-fields of the 
South. Great Britain seeks not territorial expan- 
sion, nor commercial advantage, nor military pres- 
tige in the war ; her stand is for freedom, unequivo- 
cally for freedom, and it is the definiteness of the 
position which makes plain the path of British 
duty. But we are told by the Germans, by the Aus- 
trians, by the whole group of Central Powers, that 
they, too, are fighting for freedom, which reminds 
us that seldom, if ever, have men consciously fought 
against freedom. Even the Confederate States 
were fighting for freedom — their own — in the 
Civil War. 

Clearly this word, freedom, needs to be defined ; 
its application to the war issues requires analysis 
and explanation. We must know the nature of the 
freedom that has been denied, must know to whom 
and by what right it belongs ; otherwise, it is a mere 
catch-word which does not grip reality. There 
has been a sad lack of education in Canada as to 
the underlying causes of the war. Our publicists 
seem to have assumed that Canadians would in- 
tuitively understand. But we Canadians cannot be 
expected to possess greater powers of intuition than 



BRITAIN'S WAY AND THE OTHER 21 

Englishmen, and in England scores of books have 
been written because it was found that large sec- 
tions of the community failed to realize "the true 
inner significance of the struggle." 

"The political causes of the present war," say 
the editors of "The War and Democracy," (the 
most influential of English war books) "and of the 
half century of Armed Peace which preceded it arc 
to be found, not in the particular schemes and am- 
bitions of any of the governments of Europe, nor in 
their secret diplomacy, nor in the machinations of 
the great armament interests allied to them, sinister 
though all these may have been, but in the nature 
of some of those governments themselves, and in 
their relation to the people over whom they rule." 
Thus we are told to look for the main cause of the 
war in the relations which some of the warring 
governments bear "to the people over whom they 
rule." To bring the matter squarely before the 
British people, the editors of "War and Democ- 
cracy" quote the following paragraph from "Im- 
perial Germany," a book written by Prince Bern- 
hard von Billow, who directed German policy as 
Imperial Chancellor from 1900 to 1909: 

"If it were possible for members of different 
nationalities, with different language and customs, 
and an intellectual life of a different kind, to live 
side by side in one and the same State, without suc- 
cumbing to the temptation of each trying to force 
his own nationality on the other, things on earth 
would look a good deal more peaceful. But it is a 



22 THE CLASH 

law of life and development in history that where 
two national civilisations meet they fight for 
ascendancy. In the struggle between nationalities 
one nation is the hammer and the other the anvil ; 
one is the victor, and the other the vanquished." 

Here we have the pith of the issue. It is the 
opinion of the editors of "War and Democracy" 
that "no words could indicate more clearly the 
cause that is at stake in the present war" than those 
which Prince von Biilow has written in this para- 
graph. Many reasons — most of them very good 
ones — have been given why Great Britain is in the 
war. But this is the central idea. Prince von 
Billow's words, say the editors of "War and 
Democracy," show us that there are still govern- 
ments in Europe so ignorant as to believe that the 
different nationalities of mankind are necessarily 
hostile to one another, and so foolish and brutal as 
to think that national civilisation, or, as the German 
Professors call it, 'kultur,' can and indeed must 
be propagated by the sword." 

Great Britain is fighting to stay the hand that 
wields the hammer — and necessarily Canada, too, 
is fighting to stay the hand that wields the hammer 
upon the minor nationalities within the Central 
Powers. That, then, is the freedom for which we 
sacrifice. 

It must be remembered that "War and Democ- 
racy" is not merely one author's view. It is the 
well-thought-out opinion of a group of England's 
best educationists — R. W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover 



BRITAIN'S WAY AND THE OTHER 23 

Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern, Arthur Greenwood ; 
it was written for the use of the Workers' Educa- 
tional Association of the United Kingdom. In 
other words, the book is authoritative. 

Let us seek further clarity on this important 
question, let us attempt to have the principle which 
it outlines definitely fixed in our minds — surely 
there is nothing in Canada worth more pains I By 
force of circumstances, usually conquest, groups of 
people, once freely developing towards common 
ideals, have come under the government of an alien 
nationality. That is true of the Slavs in Poland, 
the Danes in Holstein, and the French in Alsace- 
Lorraine. Germany maintains that these minor 
nationalities must be made subject to her culture 
and may at her will be limited in their own. Great 
Britain declares that to be a violation of the legiti- 
mate freedom of nationality, and asserts that this 
suppression, the most prolific source of wars, shall 
be ended once for all. With true pacifism, she sees 
in armaments only the means, in the clashing of 
nationalities a potent cause, of war, which must be 
uprooted. To quote again from "War and Democ- 
racy": "So long as there are peoples in Europe 
under alien governments, curtailed in the use of 
their own language, in the propagation of their 
literature and ideas, in their social intercourse, in 
their corporate life, in all that we in Great Britain 
understand by civil liberty, so long will there be 
men who will mock at the very idea of international 
peace, and look forward to war, not as an out-worn 



24 THE CLASH 

instrument of a barbarous age, but as a means to 
national freedom and self-expression." 

It is a splendid cause ; but — surely we cannot re- 
fuse to apply to ourselves the principles which we 
seek by arms to force upon others. There is, in the 
Province of Ontario, a minor nationality the people 
of which say to the dominant English-Canadian 
nationality: You have curtailed us in the use of our 
language; you have restricted us in the educa- 
tion which is necessary for the propagation of our 
literature and ideas; you have taken away our 
national freedom and self-expression; and this in 
a land which was ours before it was yours and 
ours. 

That accusation cannot be dismissed with the 
simple denial that the parallel between the minor 
nationalities of Germany and the minor nationality 
of Ontario does not run true. For we shall find the 
comparisons startlingly true, and we must squarely 
face the evidence. We can no longer use the old 
arguments of the "necessities of the State," "com- 
mercial advantages of homogeneity," "handiwork 
of agitators," "superiority of culture"; we can 
no longer appeal to the essentialness of the 
common school crucible; for as we shall find, 
Germany has advanced all these things in her self- 
defence, and they have been rejected as insufficient, 
rejected by Greater Britain, rejected by what we 
bdicvft to be best in civilisaMon. We simply 
cannot be Germanlike, we must, as Britain's ally, 
as an integral part of Great Britain itself, be 



BRITAIN'S WAY AND THE OTHER 25 

unequivocally and splendidly unlike the Germans. 

We believe in freedom; for that matter we 
believe in generosity. But we may talk of gener- 
osity as much as we please, extol it to the skies, and 
yet if we give not generously we merely prate. We 
may extol the cause of freedom, we may shed our 
blood for it ; but the true measure of our adherence 
to its cause is the extent to which we give freedom. 
As Lord Acton has said : "The most certain test by 
which we judge whether a country is really free, 
is the amount of security enjoyed by minorities." 

It is not denied by the English publicists who 
have laid bare the relations of nationalities, that in 
the past France and Great Britain have been guilty 
of fighting for causes which were not essentially on 
behalf of freedom — security for minorities. But it 
is argued that while men cannot be held responsible 
for all the acts of their ancestors, they can and 
must be held responsible for their own acts. Mr. 
J. M. Robertson, writing of France and Britain, 
puts it this way: "Simple common sense, priming 
common honesty, has dictated the avowal by ra- 
tional men that the honors are substantially even, 
that folly and sin played their part in both polities, 
and that the sane course is for the self-governing 
communities of to-day to live a better life, what- 
ever their forefathers may have done." 

We as Canadians must live that better life. But 
— and I have in mind the words of a friend, the 
head of an Ontario College — the minor nation- 
ality within Canada has not contributed its share 

4 



26 THE CLASH 

of men and support to the present war; has not 
shouldered its full part of Canada's responsibility; 
in a word, "the French-Canadians have not been 
patriotic." My friend's opinion may be taken as 
illustrative of a large section of English-Canadian 
sentiment. It is DeTocqueville who points out 
that there are two kinds of patriotism, that of 
instinct and that of reason; the former, which is 
disinterested, indefinable, but associating the affec- 
tions with the place of birth, the French-Canadians 
have lavished wholly upon this country; but the 
latter, that of reason, which is due to the personal 
interest of the citizen, and depends on his having a 
sense of security under the State, the French- 
Canadians have not in full measure. Let us frankly 
accept that many French-Canadians have not felt 
their responsibility to the State as have most Eng- 
lish-Canadians in this war. Let us agree that their 
attitude is a disease of the body politic and then — 
what shall we do? It is vain to regret the disease, 
a waste of precious time to speculate on its serious 
outcome. Our prime duty is to get at the cause, 
to diagnose the seat of the trouble. And if we Eng- 
lish-Canadians find the disease is mainly of our 
own making, then it naturally follows it ought to 
be of our own curing. 

In our diagnosis we may again turn with ad- 
vantage to "War and Democracy" ; for this clash- 
ing of nationalities and its causes are of a common 
origin the world over. The editors say: "There 
are governments in Europe so foolish as to think 



BRITAIN'S WAY AND THE OTHER 11 

that men and women deprived of their national in- 
stitutions, humiliated in their deepest feelings, and 
forced into an alien mould, can make good citizens, 
trustworthy soldiers, or even obedient subjects." 

Have we been violating the principles which 
British men say ought to regulate the relations 
of nationalities within a common state? Have 
we been out of harmony with the essence of 
national freedom, and foolish enough to think that 
we could escape the consequence? 



Books of Reference 

H. E. Egerton and W. L. Grant, Canadian Constitu- 
tiotial Development. Musson. 

Alfred E. Zimmem and Others, JVar and Democracy. 
MacMillan. 

Lord Acton. The Historv of Freedom. Macmillan. 

A. Wyatt Tilby, British North America, 1763-1867. 
Constable. 



CHAPTER III 

BRITAIN'S WAY AND THE OTHER 

{The Other) 

Those who seek to limit or suppress the national 
lives of others have not done so through mere love 
of cruelty; on the contrary, they believe themselves 
actuated by exceedingly creditable motives. Into 
that peculiar position they have been led by wrong 
doctrines preached since the days of nationality 
and, in modern times, fashioned into an ingenuous 
philosophy by Teutonic brains. That philosophy 
we must study if we would understand the situation 
in Ontario and Manitoba or, for that matter, 
wherever one national group is trying to break or 
bend another to its way of thinking. Everywhere 
the reasonings which urge the use of force as a 
means to homogeneity, are remarkably alike, and 
all built upon several cardinal errors which in due 
time we shall discover. 

Since the war we have incorporated the words 
Prussian, Hun, and Boche into our vocabulary of 
bad men's names, and habitually fling them — some- 
times without much reason — at our opponents. But 
a bad name will not stick unless it is deserved ; there 
must be adhesiveness in the object against which it 
is thrown. My unbacked assertion is not likely to 

28 



BRITAIN'S WAY AND THE OTHER 29 

go very far in convincing the world that German 
and Ontario minds have run through similar 
grooves in w^orking out the problem of dual nation- 
alities w^ithin a single State. The evidence must 
speak for itself. We have seen Britain's way of 
dealing with a conquered nationality. From the 
exact words of Prussia and the exact words of 
Ontario, the reader may determine for himself 
whether Canada's national problem is now being 
treated Britain's way or the other. 

The reasoning of the dominant nationality which 
would restrain by force the self-expression of a 
minor nationality, invariably begins with an effort 
to eliminate the moral factor. With morality out 
of the way, the arguments proceed rapidly and 
smoothly enough, until near the end, when another, 
and this time a supreme, difficulty arises in the 
shape of futility. In other words, the two things 
most wrong with Ontario's reasoning — and Prus- 
sia's — in forcing the culture of the dominant 
nationality upon the minor, are that it is morally 
wrong to try it, and impossible to do it. One 
would think that enough. But I am anticipating 
the argument; let us proceed by easier stages. 

It is argued that since the State makes laws 
which define right and wrong for individuals, then 
the State, being the source of right and wrong, is 
above both. There are men who regard the State 
— the casing — as the highest human entity, and as 
a consequence of this reasoning the interests of 
nationalities — the encased — become of minor im- 



30 THE CLASH 

portance. Applying that principle to the Cana- 
dian situation, there was neither right nor wrong 
involved in the treatment to be accorded the 
French-Canadians at the Conquest: there was 
only political expediency; what was thought to 
be best for the State. And it has been contended 
time and time again by English-Canadians, and 
now and then by an Englishman of England — 
that such should have been the guiding spirit of 
the settlement. 

Bismarck is supposed to have said: "Might 
before right." Max Nordau, denying that Bis- 
marck ever said it, stated that the principle "is 
perfectly accurate, not as a principle, according to 
which action should proceed, but as a statement as 
to the manner in which it does proceed." The 
same doctrine is laid down in other words by the 
German philosopher Treitschke, whose teachings 
had a wide influence with the German people. 
"The State is Might. To maintain its power is 
the highest duty of the State; of all political short- 
comings, weakness is the most abominable and most 
contemptible. It is the sin against the Holy Ghost 
of Politics." 

The pernicious doctrine of the divine right of 
might has extended beyond Germany and the Ger- 
mans, has crossed the Atlantic, undermining our 
own sense of morality as applied to the State. The 
doctrine is the more pernicious because there is no 
one to protect the victims that fall within its path. 
Of course, in the New World we do not expound 



BRITAIN'S WAY AND THE OTHER 31 

the doctrine as bluntly as did Treitschke, nor as 
frankly — for there is something to be said for the 
German's claim that his race is Frank by origin. 
But there are men in Germany who preached it, 
as we do, in softer words. Nordau many years 
ago said: "Nowadays, of course, the cry of the 
common good is always raised, when the power of 
the State overrides the rights of subject or of neigh- 
bour weaker than itself. The method is the 
familiar one of identifying a supreme power in 
the State with the country, and the advantages of 
the ruler or ruling class with that of the people 
as a whole." 

The logical wind-up of the doctrine that the 
State is above both right and wrong, is an end to 
civilization; and doctrines sooner or later reach 
their logical ends, just as water reaches its level. 

The subjection of one individual to another, is 
obviously immoral. The dictates of conscience tell 
the individual that it is wrong to rob his neighbor 
of property, of personality, wrong to rob him at 
all. But the State, having no conscience — or at 
the best, one which is very irresponsible — no fear 
of hell or any of the other things that usually 
restrain individuals, has only to consider the inter- 
ests of the majority under democracy, and the am- 
bitions or whims of dictators under autocracy. 
Nor has the State, as organized to-day, a capacity 
for seeking right merely for the sake of righteous- 
ness. Great Britain and France were the first to 
define the meaning and consequences of what we 



32 THE CLASH 

may call the Treitschke doctrine, and the first to 
repudiate it, and they were not without personal 
interest; for, obviously, if the State were right, 
always right, then the rights of nationalities be- 
came wrongs when they conflicted with the will 
of the State; if national interests within the State 
were not to be considered sacred by the State, were 
to be respected only so long as they did not conflict 
with the desires — invariably called necessities 
— of the State, then national interests without the 
State were equally unsafe. Reasoning thus, Ger- 
many became intolerable to civilization. 

We have seen in Lord Thurlow's words, the in- 
tention of the British statesman towards the con- 
quered of Quebec, and in Mr. Tilby's words the 
interpretation of the historian of what was actually 
done. Now let us have a concrete application of 
the Teutonic principle to a nationality incorpor- 
ated into the German Empire by conquest. "We 
certainly do not wish to deprive the Pole of his 
mother-tongue," said Prince von Biilow, "but we 
must try to bring it to pass that, by means of the 
German language, he comes to understand the 
German spirit. In our policy of settlement we 
fight for German nationality in the East; in our 
policy with regard to the schools we are really 
fighting for Polish nationality which we wish to 
incorporate in German intellectual life. Here, 
again, we cannot proceed without severity, and 
this will increase or be mitigated as the Poles 
increase or diminish their opposition." 



BRITAIN'S WAY AND THE OTHER 33 

Which doctrine, the British or the German, has 
been applied by English-Canadians to the minor 
nationality in Ontario and Manitoba? With 
the introduction of self-government in this country, 
English-Canadians became the legatees of Britain's 
responsibility. Have the English-Canadians of 
Ontario and Manitoba argued with Thurlow that 
humanity, justice, and wisdom, compel them to 
give the French-Canadians possession of all "cus- 
toms and institutions" that do not relate to French 
sovereignty, or have they argued, in practically 
von Billow's words, that in their policy with 
regard to the schools, they are really fighting for 
the French-Canadian nationality which they wish 
to incorporate in English-Canadian intellectual 
life? Have the English-Canadians of Ontario and 
Manitoba accepted the British view that there is a 
morality above the written law, above the State, 
above their necessities or their desires, which pro- 
tects the minor nationality in a land which was 
once theirs — or have they accepted the German 
view that, as a dominant majority possessing the 
State machinery, they may do as they please? 

Human memory is short, and although the news- 
papers have been filled with explanations of On- 
tario's position, it may be as well to have before 
our eyes the exact words in which they are ex- 
pressed. I take them from a "Toronto Globe" 
editorial. May 27, 1916. "The Globe" says: "The 
people of Ontario do not seek to abolish the teach- 
ing of French in the schools in districts where 



34 THE CLASH 

French is either the prevailing language or the 
language of a large minority, as it is in the City of 
Ottawa. What they do insist upon is that, no 
matter what other language is given a place in 
the public-school course of study, English, the 
official language of the Province, shall be efficient- 
ly taught in all the schools of Ontario. More than 
that, they do not desire; with less the English- 
speaking majority — twelve times as numerous as 
the French-speaking minority — ^will not be satis- 
fied." 

"We certainly do not wish to deprive the Pole 
of his mother-tongue," Prince von Biilow said; 
"the people of Ontario do not seek to abolish the 
teaching of French," said the editor of "The 
Globe" ; and yet, on writing these words both must 
have known that the regulations were designed 
to abolish not only the Polish and French lan- 
guages, but the Polish and French-Canadian peo- 
ples as well, since under the regulations of both 
countries it was forbidden to use Polish and French 
as languages of instruction, except under limita- 
tions which amount practically to prohibition. All 
geography, all mathematics, all the subjects on the 
school curriculum, are to be taught solely in Ger- 
man and English, and the Teuton mind would 
follow in one country and the English-Canadian in 
the other. The effect of Regulation 17 of Ontario's 
Department of Education, is denationalisation; the 
object of Regulation 17, as expressed by its creators, 
is "to rescue this province from bi-lingualism" and 



BRITAIN'S WAY AND THE OTHER 35 

dual nationality; and yet the "Globe" argues in 
words that might have been borrowed from von 
Billow that the lingual rights of the minor nation- 
ality are preserved. As to the virtue of the busi- 
ness, it is mathematical : there are twelve English- 
Canadians and one French-Canadian; that set- 
tles the business, for, as the Germans put it, Might 
is Right. The application of mathematics as a 
test of national conduct, reminds me of a comment 
made on the subject by the Professor of History m 
Columbia, Charles D. Hazen, who in "Alsace and 
Lorraine Under German Rule," says: "The spec- 
tacle of a nation which prides itself upon its excep- 
tional enlightenment, waging war in the twentieth 
century upon a language which is the mother- 
tongue of twenty per cent, of the population of 
Alsace, is unworthy, as well as intolerable." It 
must be remembered that Ontario and Alsace 
are alike in having once belonged to the men of 
the minority; although relatively to total popula- 
tion, there are slightly more French in Alsace than 
in Ontario, actually in numbers there are more 
French in Ontario than in Alsace. There is noth- 
ing in the atmosphere which makes the spectacle 
more tolerable in Canada. 

The sovereign people, the English-speaking 
majority, know what is best for the French-Can- 
adians, know the true interest of the French-Can- 
adians, better than they know it themselves, it is 
argued. "Hands off Ontario," say the Ontarians; 
"Hands off Manitoba," cry the Manitobans. We 



36 THE CLASH 

are not oppressing the French-Canadians, Mani- 
tobans and Ontarians will argue ; and with strange 
inconsistency add: It is for their own good that 
their national culture be not allowed free play for 
development. And the Germans have the same 
spirit. To quote Treitschke: "We Germans, who 
know both Germany and France, are better judges 
than the Alsatians, of their true welfare; better 
than the unfortunate folk who, by reason of their 
intercourse with France have lived in ignorance of 
the New Germany." Are these not all but the 
identical words used by the press of Ontario in 
protest of outside interference on behalf of the 
French-Canadian minority? Writing of the bi- 
lingual question, the "Toronto Star," of April 26, 
1916, says: "We in Ontario are quite capable of 
settling it. It does not worry us." The spring had 
been taken out of the French-Canadian year; the 
possession that mankind values most had been 
taken from the minor nationality, and yet the Eng- 
lish-Canadian — at least "The Star" editor — was 
not worried. The English-Canadians were better 
judges than the French-Canadians of their true 
welfare. "We do not require any assistance from 
the Dominion Government or Parliament," con- 
tinues the editor. "We will do justice to all the 
residents of Ontario, of all races, and religions, and 
the less interference there is from outside, the bet- 
ter it will be for all concerned." While the paper 
is before us, consider also this from the same 
source: "Of course, everybody in Ontario must 



BRITAIN'S WAY AND THE OTHER 11 

know English. To deprive any child of the knowl- 
edge of English, would be like depriving it of the 
use of its eyes or its legs or its arms. That is a 
practical question. Why muddle it up with a lot 
of racial, sectarian, and constitutional rubbish?" 

Here you have the substance of Ontario's argu- 
ment for limitation. Is there, I ask, anything of 
the spirit of Thurlow, anything of the philosophy 
of Toynbee, in this reasoning of the dominant 
nationality? In these words which I have quoted, 
and they are typical of Ontario's position, the Brit- 
ish principle of freedom for the minor nationality 
counts for nothing; the documents which set 
it forth are as so much "constitutional rubbish," 
a forceful reminder of the "scrap of paper" phrase. 
In the unreasoning of Ontario and Manitoba, I 
can find only a clear-cut adherence to the German 
principle, a supreme egoism of Teutonic sort in 
exaggerating the necessity of the culture of the 
majority and disregarding the value of the culture 
of the minority, and above all the insistence that the 
dominant nationality — the twelve-to-one superior- 
ity — shall alone decide as to what is right. Not 
even Treitschke has phrased the doctrine of the 
supreme power of the State in bolder words. 

The desire for homogeneity in Germany, re- 
quires explanation — as it does in Ontario. Be- 
hind these attempts to deprive the Slavs, the Danes, 
and the French, of their culture in Germany, and 
the French-Canadians of their culture in Ontario, 
will be found similar motives ; and more than that, 



38 THE CLASH 

we shall find the motives entering, at least in Ger- 
man opinion, into the war issues. Charles P. Stein- 
metz, in "America and the New Epoch," writing 
of Germany's political ideals, says: "Thus by ef- 
fective and liberal government old-age insurance, 
sickness insurance, and unemployment insurance, 
the three great fears which hung over the masses 
in all other countries, were eliminated, extreme 
poverty vanished, slums disappeared, and the con- 
dition of the masses became superior to that in all 
other countries, even in America, where the neglect 
of social legislation is gradually making itself felt 
now." At first, one is at a loss to see what connec- 
tion this program has to do with homogeneity, but, 
as Steinmetz explains: "co-operative industrial 
organisation presupposes racial unity." 

Now for an Ontario parallel, which ties race 
homogeneity into socialists' ideals. There are 
several from which to select, but this one written 
while the grievances of the French-Canadians 
were discussed on the Lapointe resolution in the 
Dominion House of Commons, by the "Toronto 
Star," May 1 8th, 1916, will do as well as any other : 
"If we are not trying to benefit our neighbour by 
legislation, we are apt to brood over some racial 
or religious difference which, as we fancy, divides 
us. If, on the other hand, we are devoting our- 
selves to plans for the improvement of the con- 
dition of working-men and working-women, we 
are not likely to be worried about the race or 
religious sect of these men and women. Social 



BRITAIN'S WAY AND THE OTHER 39 

justice knows no racial or sectarian divisions. 
Justice is the same for all. It does not care 
whether the shop-girl is a Protestant or a Catholic, 
or to what race she belongs, so long as justice 
is done." We cannot overlook the hypocrisy 
of such an answer to a people crying out for 
their mother-tongue in the land which was once 
theirs — the double iniquity of refusing to hear the 
plea and covering the refusal with phrases of cant. 
"Of all men whom we know, the Lacedaemonians 
are the most notorious for identifying what is 
pleasant with what is honorable, and what is ex- 
pedient with what is just." Not even a German 
— and in these days we regard him as the most 
heartless of men — would have given the "Star's" 
answer to a people petitioning for the right to have 
their children instructed by means of their mother's 
tongue. It is Prince von Biilow who says of the 
conflict between Teuton and Pole: "If the differ- 
ences between the nationalities were thereby im- 
mediately intensified, it was certainly unfortunate, 
but it could not be avoided. In political life there 
are often hard necessities whose behests we obey 
with a heavy heart, but which must be obeyed in 
spite of sympathies and emotions. Politics is a 
rough trade, in which sentimental souls rarely 
bring even a simple piece of work to a successful 
issue." Ontario politicians have seldom given the 
French-Canadians even these inadequate words of 
sympathy. 

But the real pith of "The Star's" reply— and it 



40 THE CLASH 

is not an unusual one in the Capital of Ontario — 
is that the interests of the minor nationality must 
give way before social reforms desired by the major 
nationality. It is perhaps wrong to say, "desired 
by the major nationality," for it is not apparent 
that beyond Toronto there are many who be- 
lieve that Canada, with millions of arable acres, 
unfarmed simply because men prefer town life, 
has reached the stage where measures for the 
relief of its self-constituted — and unduly large — 
industrial population are justifiable. 

In both German and Ontario schools of social- 
istic thought, "racial homogeneity" is regarded as 
essential to their program. To get at the worth of 
this contention we English-Canadians have only to 
ask ourselves this question: Would we sell our 
birthright of language, of mentality, for a mess of 
social reform pottage? The test is surely a fair 
one; and, unless the answer is in the affirmative, 
then those who offer social improvement argu- 
ments as a reason for refusing recognition of the 
dual nationality, stand self-convicted of seeking 
their own material ends, by the sacrifice of the 
deepest spiritual feelings of their fellowmen. 

I have said that Steinmetz carries this question 
of socialism to the root of the war. England has 
been individualistic ; Germany, co-operative. That 
is in effect the argument. He says: "The present 
world's war is the conflict between the passing era 
of individualistic industrialism and the coming 
era of co-operative organization, the former repre- 



BRITAIN'S WAY AND THE OTHER 41 

sented by England, the latter by Germany." And 
Steinmetz' statement is true — except his prophecy 
— in the sense that in England, the State exists for 
the man, and in Germany, man exists for the State ; 
in England the thing most sought is the highest 
development of man, in Germany the highest de- 
velopment of the State. That is why, as we have 
seen, Germany regards human nationalities as so 
many hammers and anvils. 

The Prussians, only a few hundred years re- 
moved from the armed camp into city, town, and 
civilisation, have the primary conception of the 
State as an army, and its citizens as soldiers. An 
impressionistic view of this conception is of men 
dressed alike in invisible grey uniforms, wearing 
identical helmets, moving with the same stiff, awk- 
ward but effective steps, and wheeling in identical 
manner at the State's word of command. Some 
years ago, I watched men feed a huge machine with 
steel rods of varying lengths, and saw an inces- 
sant stream of horse-shoe nails pour forth, all of 
the same length, all of the same bright steely pol- 
ish, all with the same peculiarly shaped head, the 
same sharp point, the same weight to the minutest 
part of an ounce, the same resisting power and 
strength. Such is the product of the doctrine of 
homogeneity. It is a mechanical thing, but it is 
effective — and so are horse-shoe nails — for a pur- 
pose. 

German modern achievements in peace and war 
are successes of a sort; but they are the successes of 

5 



42 THE CLASH 

a State, not of humanity. They are the successes of 
a colony of ants. The single ant is a weak creature ; 
but ants as a colony, pursuing their own selfish 
economic and social ways, battle with insects many 
times their size ; countless numbers are destroyed ; 
but ants as ants are preserved. Here is success, but 
is it the kind of success we would imitate? Ger- 
mans, like ants, allow nothing to stand in the way 
of their kind. All are swept along in the crowd. 
Collective psychology is little understood, but as 
M. Grau points out, Eucken and many other Ger- 
man philosophers whom we admired — before the 
war — lost their critical faculties when surrounded 
by the collective mind. The Slav in Poland, the 
Dane in Holstein, the French in Alsace-Lorraine, 
the Walloon and the Fleming in Belgium, all must 
be hacked down in the triumphant march of the 
Germans, inspired by their fanatical, collective 
self-worship. It is essentially a Prussian idea, but 
not exclusively Prussian; for others, including 
many English-Canadians, have accepted it. 

Books oif Rei^erence 

Charles Downer Hazen, Alsace-Lorraine Under German 
Rule. Holt. 

Prince Bernhard von Billow, Imperial Germany. Cas- 
sel. 

Charles P. Steinmetz, America and the New Bpoeh. 
Harpers. 

Max Nordau, Paradoxes. Heinemann. 
J. M. Robertson, The Germans. Putnam. 

Emile Hovelaque, The Deeper Causes of the War. But- 
ton. 

1i. T. Hobhouse, Questions of War arid Peace. T. 
Fisher Unwhi. 



CHAPTER IV 

THE ONTARIO THAT WAS CARVED OUT OF QUEBEC 

None will deny that the geography of the Pro- 
vince of Ontario was first put into scientific shape 
by men of the French tongue ; that its most inter- 
esting and entertaining pages of history were writ- 
ten in the French language; that the Jesuit "Rela- 
tions" set down before Ontario was carved out of 
Quebec, contains geographical and ethnological in- 
formation of the land between the Ottawa and the 
Great Lakes, as necessary to the modern geo- 
grapher and historian as foundation stones to 
the builder. They are, in fact, invaluable records 
of the province, were often written, as Thwaites 
reminds us, "in the midst of a chaos of distractions, 
immersed in scenes of squalor and degradation by 
men overcome by fatigue and improper sustenance, 
suffering from wounds and disease and maltreated 
by their hosts, who were often their jailors." "I do 
not know," says one of the apostles — who, by the 
way, as we are reminded, was writing from Canada 
an epistle to the Romans — "whether your Patern- 
ity will recognise the letter of a poor cripple who 
formerly, when in perfect health, was well-known 
to you. The letter is badly written, and quite soiled 
because, in addition to other inconveniences, he 
who writes it has only one whole finger on his right 

43 



44 THE CLASH 

hand ; and it is difficult to avoid staining the paper 
with blood which flows from his wounds, not yet 
healed : he uses arquebus powder for ink, and the 
earth for a table." 

While Roundheads and Cavaliers were fighting 
it out in England, Frenchmen were mapping the 
Great Lakes of Canada. According to Parkman, 
the map of Galinee was made nearly a hundred 
years before the British conquered Canada, a!nd it 
"gives the course of the Upper St. Lawrence and 
the shores of Lake Ontario, the River Niagara, the 
north shore of Lake Erie, the Strait of Detroit, and 
the Eastern and Northern shores of Lake Huron." 
This map professed only to represent the country 
actually visited by the Sulpician missionaries, Dol- 
ier and Galinee. Three years later, according to 
the same authority, another map "indicating a 
greatly increased knowledge of the country, was 
made by some person whose name does not ap- 
pear. This map, which is somewhat more than 
four feet long and about two feet and a half wide, 
has no title. All the Great Lakes, through their 
entire extent, are laid down on it with considerable 
accuracy." 

The Ottawa River was traced to its source, and 
travelled over and over again; the French River, 
[Riviere-des-Frangois] and Lake Nipissing, the 
Kaministikiwa River, Rainy River [Riviere-a-la 
Pluie], the Lake-of-the-Woods [Lac des Bois], and 
the great chain of waterways that just missed con- 
necting the plains of the West with the Inland Seas, 



ONTARIO CARVED OUT OF QUEBEC 45 

were put on the map by French-Canadian geogra- 
phers. During the days of the French Regime, 
Canadians paddled the Winnipeg River to Lake 
Winnipeg. They explored the Red River and 
the Assiniboine. They discovered Lakes Mani- 
toba, Winnipegosis, and Dauphin, and travelled 
the Saskatchewan as well, tracing its branches to 
the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. The 
Ontario that lies between James Bay and the 
Great Lakes they knew as well, almost better than 
it is known to-day; and, to the pride of Canada, 
the greatest name in Canadian exploration is that 
of the native-born Pierre La Verendrye, born at 
Three Rivers in the year 1685. Lawrence Burpee 
in his "Search for the Western Sea," pays this 
tribute to the "natural rights" of Canadians who 
speak French: 

"The cause of North American exploration owes 
much to the men of New France and to none does 
it owe more than to Pierre Gaultier de La Veren- 
drye. No explorer ever accomplished so much 
under such extraordinary difficulties. His story 
is the story of a man who having set himself a gi- 
gantic task, not for his own profit but for the glory 
of his native land, followed it unflinchingly in spite 
of obstacles of every kind, in spite of wearing dis- 
couragements, in spite of misrepresentation and 
calumny, until at last death intervened, the task 
incomplete, but notable in its incompleteness. His 
name must always remain one of the most honored 
names in Canadian exploration." 



46 THE CLASH 

Before me lies a map of the Province of Upper 
Canada, made in the days when His Excellency, 
John Graves Simcoe was Lieutenant-Governor, 
and over it French names are thickly strewn. Let 
me mention some of them at random : River Petite 
Nation, Lesmilles Roch, Long Sault, Rapid Rolat, 
River Rideau, Gannanocui, Frontenac, Pt. Trav- 
ers, Presque Isle de Quinte, River Trent, River 
Tonty, Point aux Pins, Pt. Pele, Cedre River, 
River Canard, Isle au Bois, Lac St. Clair, River 
aux Sables, Maisonvilles Mill, Chenaile Escarte, 
and — but why continue? The extent of the French 
hand is not recognisable in the map of to-day, for in 
later years many of the early French names have 
been replaced by those of English construction. In 
the plan which I am reading, Toronto's summer 
playground is named Lac la Clie, but the name was 
afterwards changed to Simcoe, in honour of a lieu- 
tenant-governor, who also gave to three of its bor- 
dering townships the names of Tiny, Tay, and 
Floss, names borrowed, it is said, I think, by John 
Ross Robertson, from Lady Simcoe's pet poodle 
dogs. 

The failure to concentrate population along the 
shores of the St. Lawrence, has been set down by 
historians as a fatal weakness in French colonial 
policy. Weakness then, it is strength to-day. 
The plain truth is that the Government was 
unable to restrain the Canadians from moving up 
the waters of the Ottawa and up the waters of the 
St. Lawrence, into the land that lay beside the 



ONTARIO CARVED OUT OF QUEBEC 47 

Great Lakes. Nor was the policy of the home 
Government consistent as to the desirability of con- 
centration; there were governors who saw clearly 
that if the claims to the vast territories within New 
France were to be recognised by the Powers, occu- 
pation of a sort was necessary, and efforts were 
made to plant settlements in various parts of the 
country, even at the cost of the safety of the first 
and main colony on the St. Lawrence. But no 
matter what the Government's policy, the Cana- 
dians were carried by a spirit of wanderlust into the 
wilderness. 

As a result of an impression that there were no 
French-Canadian settlements at the coming of the 
British in the lands which are now called Ontario, 
some have refused to acknowledge the lien of 
French culture upon this province. The force of 
the argument is lost in the fact that the Quebec 
Act was applied to certain definite tracts of 
land, the boundaries of which were set forth. 
The direct and implied promises contained 
in the Quebec Act and given in the Brit- 
ish Parliament at its passing, had essentially a 
regional basis. There was then no Ontario, no 
Manitoba, only Quebec. But the records show that 
the French-Canadians have also a sound claim 
based on settlement ; for there was settlement — 
considerable for the period — in what is now On- 
tario, before the division into provinces. Lacking 
an exact basic figure, we cannot make an exact 
mathematical calculation; but all the knowledge 



48 THE CLASH 

available shows that there was then a sufficient pop- 
ulation west of the Ottawa to account for the pres- 
ent number of French-Canadians in Ontario. Of 
course, there has been migration into Ontario 
from Quebec, but there has been a balancing mi- 
gration from Ontario to Quebec, to other parts of 
Canada and to the United States. We know that 
the sixty odd thousand French who were in Can- 
ada at the time of the British Conquest, with a few 
thousand Acadians, have grown to something like 
three million French-Canadians in Canada and the 
United States to-day. Accepting these figures as 
the natural rate of increase by birth, only a few 
thousand men and women would be required then 
to account for the 250 thousand French-Cana- 
dians now in Ontario. 

It is significant that in the sections where there 
were settlements before the British Conquest, 
there are French-Canadian settlements to-day. In 
Northern Ontario there are French-Canadians at 
the various points where the missionaries built their 
first churches and cleared the land for the agri- 
cultural support of the community. There are 
French-Canadians to-day wherever voyageurs 
made their trading-posts and French soldiers built 
their log fortresses. Settlers have come and gone, 
but the stream of population has for several 
centuries constantly flowed into the Hinterland. 
After Upper Canada, and later Ontario, had 
been taken from the side of Quebec, the English- 
Canadians for many years neglected the north 



ONTARIO CARVED OUT OF QUEBEC 49 

country — they had what seemed to them fairer 
fields in the western prairies — and, as a result, the 
population on the Lower Ottawa was left free to 
move into unoccupied lands on the tributaries of 
the Upper Ottawa and the waters that, rising north 
of the divide, flow into Hudson Bay. 

In South Western Ontario, Essex was first set- 
tled by the French. Early in the eighteenth cen- 
tury, a colony of French-Canadians was planted 
along the banks of the Detroit River — the colonists 
being soldiers from a disbanded French regiment. 
"In 1752 was born the first white child in the future 
county, Jean Dufour, by name." The country ap- 
pealed to the French. Says the historian : "Every 
farmer had his yoke of oxen for ploughing, his 
calash for summer, and his cariole for winter driv- 
ing, whilst everywhere were to be seen blossommg 
shrubs and fine fruit-trees. In fact, 

" 'Many a thrifty Mission pear 
Yet o'erlooks the blue St. Clair, 
Like a veteran faithful warden; 
On their branches gnarled and olden, 
Still each year the blossoms dance, 
Scent and bloom of sunny France.' " 

It was not until 1788, when the French settle- 
ment had grow^n strong in numbers, that English- 
speaking men and women came from the United 
States to the Detroit River settlement. 

In Eastern Ontario it was natural that there 
should have been settlement. It came up the St. 
Lawrence by easy stages in the centuries of French 



A -. - — s~ 






^ 



fis 



ONTARIO CARVED OUT OF QUEBEC 51 

appears in the early history of the country. 
When General Hull invaded Canada, he estab- 
lished his headquarters in the partially completed 
house of Francis Baby. When Quebec was taken 
in 1759, and Montreal capitulated in 1760, Major 
Rogers was sent by General Amherst to proceed 
westward and take over the posts of Michigan. 
The negotiations between Rogers and Bellestre, 
Commander of Detroit, were carried on through 
M. "Babee" for the French, and Mr. Brehme for 
the British. This member of the family is identi- 
fied by Dr. James as "Jacques Duperon Baby, the 
son of Raymond Baby and grandson of Jacques 
Baby de Rainville, who came to Canada from 
Guienne, France, with the Carignan Regiment" 
Another member of the Baby family, Jean Bap- 
tiste, represented Kent County in the Fifth Parlia- 
ment (1809-12). 

That the influence of the old French Regime in 
the early life of the country now called Ontario, is 
not fully realised by the present generation, is eas- 
ily explained. The truth is that much of the 
evidence was destroyed. A paragraph from the 
Proclamation dividing the Province of Upper Ca- 
nada into counties, shows the means, and indicates 
the extent of destruction : 

"That the seventh of the said comities be hereafter 
called by the name of Cotintv of Ontario, which comity 
is to consist of the following islands, an Island at oresent 
known by the name of Isle Tonti (to be called Amherst 
Island) an island known by the name of Isle au Foret (to 



52 THE CLASH 

be called Gage Island), an island known by the name of 
Grande Isle (to be called Wolfe Island) and an island 
known by the name of Isle Chuchois (to be called Howe 
Island), and to comprehend all the islands between the 
mouth of the Garanoque [a misprint for Gananoque] to 
the Eastermost extremity of the late Township of Marys- 
burg, called Point Pleasant." 

I complain not of the change of names, but of 
the conclusion that is drawn : that the French had 
not much to do with the geography of the Province, 
and little to do with its settlement, since its 
names are now so largely English, instead of 
French. Such reasoning is unsportsmanlike. 

As I write, Le Petit Cote Creek flows at my feet 
— at least it would if its bed were not dry — and 
when the drought is over this autumn it will flow 
into Outer Frenchman's Bay, marked Baie des 
Frangais on the old maps. If I rise in time to 
catch the morning train for town, I shall take it at 
a station a stone's throw from the mouth of the 
River Rouge — and for miles around there are no 
French families! There is more than a tradition 
that years before the days of the United Em- 
pire Loyalists, a little French school was planted 
on the shores of the Inner Bay. What a stirring 
tragedy of clerical intrigue and racial extermina- 
tion could be written if only the names were Eng- 
lish and the country-side in the Eastern Townships 
of Quebec, instead of in the County of Ontario 
scarcely twenty miles from the City of Toronto! 
But then, as John Ross Robertson reminds us in 



ONTARIO CARVED OUT OF QUEBEC 53 

his interesting "Landmarks of Toronto," "the 
dawn of civilised life on the shores of Toronto 
Bay" came when Frenchmen erected old Fort 
Rouille, and "made the rough clearance in the 
primitive forest of an area of about 300 acres im- 
mediately around its palisades." But, for that 
matter, practically all the old French trading-posts 
have been converted into cities and towns, and the 
old trails and portages of the voyageurs made over 
into highways. 

Before the English came, the means of naviga- 
tion had all but run their course, — the canoes were 
followed by the flat-bottom bateaux, and they in 
their turn by sailing craft of the schooner type. 
Men of the French tongue built the first ship on the 
Great Lakes ; men of the French tongue first sailed 
across Lake Erie, up through the Detroit and St. 
Clair Rivers into Lake Huron, through the Straits 
of Michipotcoten to Lake Michigan ; and when the 
"Griffon," with her cargo of valuable furs, was 
wrecked on the return voyage, men of the French 
tongue paid with their lives the first toll exacted 
of those who carry commerce by vessel on the great 
inland seas of Canada. 

The missionaries who went forth into the wilder- 
ness carrying the story of the Gethsemane to the 
savages along the shores of the Georgian Bay and 
up into the Hinterland, gave to the world an im- 
perishable example of devotion and sacrifice. Some 
will find fault with the way the message was deliv- 
ered; but, after all, the criticism is of details, the 



54 THE CLASH 

mere manner of telling, not of the story itself ; and 
in these days the emphasis is being placed on the 
likenesses, not the differences, of the several phases 
of the Christian belief. Men of all religions, and 
men of none, are forced into a whole-hearted 
admiration for the unselfish devotion of the early 
Canadian missionaries. Between 1615, when 
Legaron first visited the Georgian Bay, and 1650, 
when the dispersion of the Hurons was com- 
plete, twenty-nine missionaries had laboured 
among the Hurons; and of these, seven had 
suffered violent deaths. 

The mangled, charred bodies of Breboeuf and 
Lalement were buried at Ste. Marie beside the 
waters of the Georgian Bay. The memory of their 
heroism is the treasured possession of all men who 
admire sacrifice for conscience's sake. 

Of Breboeuf, the historian tells us : "All forms of 
torture were devised — his flesh was cut out bit by 
bit, they lifted the skin of his head in the form of a 
crown, and bored his eyes out with hot irons. Then 
they mocked him, saying : 'You told us the more we 
suffered here the greater would be our reward in 
Heaven. So you see we are preparing you for a 
happy home!' They surrounded the priest's body 
with bark covered with resin and set it on fire. 
Throughout all this monstrous, horrible ordeal 
Breboeuf stood impassive. He could not speak, he 
could not see, but his face showed no twinge of 
pain and his giant form towered erect and unf alter- 
ing." 



ONTARIO CARVED OUT OF QUEBEC 55 

And of Lalement, "weak from childhood and 
slender almost to emaciation," we are told, "he was 
unequal to a display of fortitude like that of his col- 
league. When Breboeuf died, he was led back to 
the house whence he had been taken, and tortured 
there all night, until, in the morning, one of the 
Iroquois, growing tired of the protracted entertain- 
ment, kilkd him with a hatchet. It was said that, 
at times, he seemed beside himself ; then, rallying, 
with hands uplifted, he offered his suffering to 
Heaven as a sacrifice." 

The safety of their converts was the first con- 
sideration of these pioneer ministers; their own, a 
matter of inconsequence, compared with duty. 
"Fly!" screamed the priest, as the hostile legions 
broke into the palisades, driving his flock before 
him. "I will stay here. We shall meet again in 
Heaven." 

The ashes of French-Canadian martyrs mingle 
with the earth of Old Ontario; yet there are men 
who wantonly scoff at the "natural rights" of the 
descendants of the Old Regime within the Prov- 
ince ! The soil of Ontario is a veritable sanctuary 
to the French-Canadian people. 

The exploits of the coureurs-des-bois extended 
over the vast land between the Ottawa River and 
the Great Lakes and beyond to the foothills of the 
Rocky Mountains. Their wanderings have im- 
pressed the imagination of every race ; many who 
know nothing of Canada's mundane wheat crops 
and railways, admire its coureurs-des-bois. Their 



56 THE CLASH 

memoirs of travel serve as guide-books to engi- 
neers v^^ho nearly three hundred years later were to 
follow their practically undisturbed footsteps and 
lay out railways for the opening-up of the country 
to a new civilisation. ''Not all paths have evolved 
into railways," writes John Finley, President of 
the University of the State of New York, "but the 
railroads have followed practically all of these 
natural paths — paths of the coureurs-des-bois, 
instinctively searching for mountain passes, the 
low portages from valley to valley, the shortest 
ways and the easiest grades." 

The names of these frontiersmen of civilisation 
are too little known within the land of their 
achievements. It is not only prophets that are 
denied fame in their own land. Etienne Brule, the 
guide of missionaries, ventured into streams and 
forests against the advice of his neighbours and, 
in the end, paid the usual penalty of the men who 
wrested Canada for civilization — death at the stake. 
Jean Nicolet was taken half way across the Con- 
tinent by the spirit of wanderlust. Dulutte and 
his cousin, the intrepid Tonty, spent practically a 
lifetime in the outposts which the most hardy 
visited only after consigning their souls to God. 
Hennepin, the first white man to see and describe 
Niagara Falls and tell of the buffalo, although 
wearing the frock of a priest and writing with the 
pen of a Fenimore Cooper, possessed the soul of a 
coureur-des-bois, and his name will live in their 
annals. La Salle was more than a coureur-des-bois. 



ONTARIO CARVED OUT OF QUEBEC 57 

although intimately associated with their travels; 
he was an explorer, and his achievements are 
among the world's greatest records of exploration. 
The shores of Lake Huron and the Georgian 
Bay are marked with many an historic battle-field, 
witnesses to the bravery and perseverance of 
French-Canadians. The wars which raged between 
the French and the Indians from the banks of the 
St. Lawrence to the plains of the Great West, 
their sieges and, unhappily, their massacres, are 
indelible pages of heroism and tragedy, which 
cannot be erased from the records of the Province 
of Ontario. It is impossible, as it is unnecessary, to 
describe even the more important battles which the 
French-Canadians fought with the Indians to make 
this country "safe for civilisation." No greater 
heroism is recorded in the wonderful pages of 
Greek history than the action in which Dollard and 
his handful of French-Canadians went at the Long 
Sault to certain destruction by a horde of sav- 
ages, that the colony might be saved. But that is 
only one of the many instances of self-sacrifice in 
the days of the Old Regime. Professor Colby, 
referring to Wellington's boast, that during the 
Peninsular War the English captured more than 
one strong place in Spain without any provision of 
bullets, save those fired at them by their enemies, 
having trusted to this chance when they formed 
the siege, says that while "this is a good story, one 
could undertake to match it from the exploits of 
the Canadians who followed Francois Hertel, 

6 



58 THE CLASH 

Hertel de Rouville, Le Moyne de Sainte-Helene, 
and Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville." 

When I was a boy, the history of Canada before 
the coming of the English was dismissed with a 
few cursory lessons. I admired the patient toil of 
the English pioneers who hewed their farms out 
of the forest, but down in my heart I envied the 
boys of Scotch, English, and Irish descent who 
could repeat tales of the days when knighthood was 
in flower in the shires of their forefathers. Child- 
ish? Of course it was; I was a child. Foolish? 
Perhaps; but we must remember the words of 
Byron : 

"Parent of golden dreams, Romance! 
Auspicious queen of childish joys, 
Who leads't along, in airy dance, 
The votive train of girls and boys." 

And then I read in Parkman, and later, in "Les 
Relations," page after page, book after book, the 
wonderful tales in which knights, voyageurs, mis- 
sionaries, and soldiers, lived again their lives of ad- 
venture in this country of my birth. Their exploits 
rivalled those of the Iliad and the Odyssey; and- 
having been performed in my homeland, stim- 
ulated my youthful patriotism. 

The French-Canadians are justly proud of the 
achievements of their forefathers, for they bespeak 
the soundness of the national foundation stock; and 
bitter is their regret that these things may no longer 
be told in school to their children and their child- 
ren's children in the French language; for they 



ONTARIO CARVED OUT OF QUEBEC 59 

are either geography or history, and Regulation 17 
proscribes French as the language of instruction. 
"Ontario is not a bi-lingual province" said a 
Minister of the Crown from the hustings, and his 
words are echoed in the press of the province, "On- 
tario is not a bi-lingual province." Well, there are 
men foolish enough to say the world is not round ; 
but their say-so does not make it flat. 



Books op Ri^ifERENCE 

C. W. Colby, Canadian Types of the Old Regime. Holt. 

Francis Parkman, The Jesuits in North America, and 
other books of the series. Little, Brown Company. 

H. E. Egerton and W. L. Grant, Canadian Constitu- 
tional Documents. Musson. 

C. C. James, The First Legislation of Upper Canada, 
(pamphlet) Hope, Ottawa. 

Edward Channing and Marion Lansing, The Story of 
the Great Lakes. Macmillan. 

Lawrence J. Burpee, The Search for the Western Sea. 
Musson. 

John Ross Robertson, The Landmarks of Toronto. 
Robertson. 

Emily P. Weaver, The Counties of Ontario. Bell & 
Cockburn. 

John Finley, The French in the Heart of America 
Scribners. 



CHAPTER V 



RACE SUPERIORITY 



Some years ago I sat at a restaurant table with 
two Canadians, one of English and the other of 
French extraction. In the course of conversation, 
the English-Canadian made a remark which was 
decidedly uncomplimentary to the French-Cana- 
dian race. Afterwards I reproached him for the 
unfairness of what he had said, and for the rank 
indecency of having said it in the presence of a 
man of the race. "Tut, tut!" he expostulated. 
"Henri doesn't mind. Down in his heart he knows 
that the Latin race is not as good as the Anglo- 
Saxon." That was news to me, and upon meeting 
Henri, I gently sought confirmation. I have not 
forgotten the reply. "Heaven grant that I may 
never cease resenting unjust reflections upon my 
race," adding, after a pause, "and keep my mouth 
shut." "Why keep silent?" I remonstrated. "Our 
position as a race would become untenable in 
Canada were we to resent everything that is said 
against us," was the reply. 

The average English-Canadian believes not 
merely in the worth of the Anglo-Saxon race, but 
in its inherent superiority. Naturally, wherever 
there is a superior, there is an inferior; and, the 
French-Canadian being nearest at hand, it is with 

60 



RACE SUPERIORITY 61 

his race comparison is usually made. Herein 
lies the well of Canada's national trouble. To fix 
the badge of inferiority upon a race is the unpar- 
donable sin of nationalities. Regulation 17 is in 
reality only an incident, a manifestation of the 
spirit. 

For all I know, the Englishman of England also 
believes in the superiority of Anglo-Saxon blood; 
but, if he does, he seldom says so. It isn't good 
form. Ripe old experience has taught him that by 
deeds, not by boasts, are relative race values de- 
termined. To-day the Englishman of England 
is standing upon what he has done and is doing. 
There was a time when the Englishman of Eng- 
land gloated over his superiorities, and paraded 
other people's supposed inferiorities; and in those 
days the Englishman of England was anything but 
an international favourite. Significantly enough, 
when he changed his tune from "Rule Britannia" 
to "Keep the Home Fires Burning," other races 
more clearly recognised Anglo-Saxon virtues, and 
more readily paid tribute to them. After all, there 
is a lot of human nature in group psychology. 

But the English-Canadian still shouts the virtues 
of Anglo-Saxonism from press and hustmgs; it is 
his favourite stock in the political trade ; and then, 
there is always an object of comparison. In 1917, 
it was the French-Canadian who was inferior; in 
1911, the American of the United States. The 
comparison is the unhappy part of the business, 
and so far as the French-Canadi-an is concerned, a 



62 THE CLASH 

disastrous part. The American does not mind ; he 
is used to bragging and looks upon the English- 
Canadian's proclamation of superiority with the 
lofty, benignant smile of the man in the moon. But 
the French-Canadian is too close, and too sensitive, 
to pass it lightly off. His racial hide is not as thick 
as that of the American. He is wounded to the 
quick by the reflections cast upon his race so freely 
and persistently by English-Canadians. 

It is important that the reader should have in 
mind a clear distinction between race and nation- 
ality; the two words are often used interchange- 
ably, whereas, of course, the former means "com- 
munity of blood," and the latter community in 
those several factors, sometimes including blood 
and bones, which were analysed in the first chapter. 
Men may be of the same race and of different 
nationalities; and, for that matter, of the same 
nationality and different races. A man may throw 
oflf the nationality of his parents and accept an- 
other, as many are doing to-day in the New World. 
But a man cannot change his race ; the blood which 
courses his veins is the product of his uncountable 
ancestors. A man may, by thought, increase the 
contents of his skull, but he can, by thought, 
neither change its size nor shape, nor can he add a 
"cubit to his stature." According to the man on 
the street, "blood will tell"; and according to the 
man of the laboratory, like Professor Osborne, 
the learned author of "The Men of the Old 
Stone Age," "heredity has a deep, subtle, and per- 



RACE SUPERIORITY 63 

manent influence on the actions of men." There- 
fore, we are forced to turn the pages of science 
in an attempt to determine how much of our na- 
tional clash is due to immutable ethnical differ- 
ences. 

Here, as elsewhere, we shall find changing 
views. Not so long ago, we were dependent upon 
the philologist for our knowledge of the men who 
lived and did things in the far-away eras before 
contemporary historians chronicled conditions for 
future generations. As a result of philological in- 
vestigations, we had an Aryan race from which 
sprung most European races, and we spoke of an 
Anglo-Saxon race, a Celtic race, and a Latin race. 
But reflection should have told us that we were 
then treading uncertain ground. We were trying 
to determine men's blood, bones, stature, and 
brains; to decide, in fact, what kind of animals 
men had been by the way they manipulated con- 
sonants and vowels. The fallacy of this reasoning 
may, perhaps, be best understood by a supposition. 
If the philologists of a thousand years from now 
were to write of the American race that had lived 
in the United States in 1918, proving its existence 
and outlining its character by the language that had 
been preserved, the people of 2918 would be whol- 
ly misled. A mere examination of the formation of 
words used in the United States in 1918, as our 
philologists have examined the languages of people 
that are gone by, would not reveal the fact that ten 
out of every hundred Americans were then de- 



64 THE CLASH 

scended from the several races of the African Con- 
tinent, and that the other ninety were from several 
separate and sharply different race groups. Clear- 
ly, the v7ork of tracing race history beyond the era 
of chronicled pages is more that of the ethnologist 
than that of the philologist. 

To-day the European peoples are divided by 
ethnologists into three stock race groups. Although 
a common nomenclature has not been everywhere 
accepted, all are in substantial agreement as to the 
number and distribution of the groupings. We 
may accept the classification made by Madison 
Grant in the "Passing of the Great Race," the lat- 
est work on the subject, and accept it the more 
readily because it has the approval of Dr. Osborne. 

First. The Nordic or Baltic race. The Nordic 
race developed around the shores of the Baltic and 
North Sea, its original home being in the Scandi- 
navian Peninsula, and "is, therefore, the Homo- 
europeus, the white man par excellence," says Mr. 
Grant. The race is known by its "blondness, wavy 
hair, blue eyes, fair skin, high, narrow and straight 
nose, which are associated with great stature, and a 
long skull, as well as with abundant head and body 
hair." 

Second. The Alpine race. This race is of Asi- 
atic origin, and in all probability its centre of 
original evolution was the Western Himalayas. 
The Alpines are of stocky build and moderately 
short stature, and distinguished "by a round face 
and correspondingly round skull, which, in the true 



RACE SUPERIORITY 65 

Armenians, has a peculiar sugar-loaf shape, a 
characteristic which can be easily recognized. 

Third. The Mediterranean race. "Throughout 
Neolithic times, and possibly still earlier," says 
Mr. Grant, "it seems to have occupied, just as it 
does to-day, all the shores of the Mediterranean, 
including the coast of Africa, from Morocco on 
the west, to Egypt on the east. The Mediterraneans 
are the western members of a sub-species of man 
which forms a substantial part of the population 
of Persia, Afghanistan, Baluchistan, and Hindus- 
tan, with perhaps a southward extension into Cey- 
lon." The Mediterranean is a relatively small, 
light-boned race, of brunette color, becoming even 
swarthy in certain portions of its range. This 
race has a long skull, like the Nordic, but the 
absolute size of the skull is less. 

This opening up of old tombs has an interest for 
those of us who are investigating the relation of 
races in Canada, for it is the bones of our ancestors 
that have been uncovered, measured and classified. 
The ethnological classification corresponds roughly 
to that of the philologist. We have been calling 
the Mediterranean, Latin; the Alpine (in a most 
general way), Celt; the Nordic, Teuton; and our 
branch of tlie family, Anglo-Saxon, when discuss- 
ing our ancestral business. Before pressing a claim 
of English-Canadian race superiority, we ought to 
examine the evidence as to Anglo-Saxon superior- 
ity upon which it rests. 



66 THE CLASH 

Having come mainly from the British Isles, 
we English-Canadians must return to them for evi- 
dence of our race ancestry. We have been accus- 
tomed (such is the force of popular nomenclature) 
to regard ourselves as all Anglo-Saxon. Had we 
been right in this supposition, we should be of the 
Nordic race, for the Angles (probably) came from 
Jutland and the Saxons from the base of the Dan- 
ish peninsula, districts in which the Nordic race 
was cradled. But as time runs in the life of races, 
the Angles and the Saxons, and kindred Nordic 
tribes, invaded England in recent years. We must 
of necessity go behind their invasions, if we would 
determine the entire nature of our own ancestral 
stock. And, when the historian's hand raised the 
veil of obscurity from the British Islands, the coun- 
try was inhabited by Mediterraneans. "When the 
Teutonic tribes entered Britain, they found there 
peoples all speaking Celtic of some form, either 
Goidelic or Cyrmic," writes Mr. Grant, "and 
promptly called them all Welsh (foreigners). 
These Welsh were preponderantly of Mediter- 
ranean type, with some mixture of a blond Goidel 
strain and a much stronger blond strain of Cymric 
origin, and these same elements exist to-day in 
England." 

Of course these early Britishers who were dis- 
turbed in their occupation by the marauding Teu- 
tons, were not "Latins" in the sense that they spoke 
in Latin tongues, but they were and their descend- 
ants are to-day Latins in the sense that they were 



RACE SUPERIORITY 67 

and are of the same race as the Spaniards, Portu- 
guese, Italians, and South country Frenchmen, 
who, subsequently speaking in Latin tongues, were 
called of the Latin race. 

In the Bronze Age, (roughly from 3000 to 1800 
B.C.,) the Mediterranean race prevailed over all 
France and the British Islands, although the Al- 
pines had even then succeeded in forcing their way 
from Central Asia across Europe through Central 
France to the North Atlantic. In neither France 
nor Britain had the Nordic race obtained a foot- 
hold; in the Bronze Age it was still hugging the 
cold glaciers of Scandinavia. 

In the next era, extending from 1800 B.C. 
almost to the birth of Jesus, the distribution of 
races was altered. The Nordics sailed westward 
along the shores of the Baltic and North Sea and 
drove the Mediterraneans and Alpines away, 
establishing a chain of colonies that reached from 
Scandinavia westward and covered all Northern 
France, with the exception of Brittany. The 
Nordics crossed the Channel into Britain, but did 
not succeed in expelling or exterminating the 
Mediterraneans, who remained and handed down 
to the present generation of Englishmen (accord- 
ing to ethnological measurements) unmistakable 
evidence of having continued in the capacity of 
ancestors. 

Nor was "the original" race the only source from 
which we derive Mediterranean blood. If we do 
not forget that for 350 years Britain was occupied 



68 THE CLASH 

by the Romans, we often fail to estimate the race 
effect which it had upon the inhabitants — our an- 
cestors. It is true few Romans brought their 
Roman wives with them to Britain ; but it is impos- 
sible that they should have occupied the country 
for 35 decades without leaving descendants who 
were of their blood and their race. It is also true 
that the Roman armies were not purely Mediter- 
ranean; were, in fact, gathered from all portions of 
the great Roman Empire; but that they were pre- 
ponderantly of Mediterranean blood is beyond 
question. Let us turn from the ethnologist to the 
philologist for evidence in support of this conten- 
tion. Thomas Wright, who examined the period 
closely, concludes that as a result of the Roman 
occupation all except the peasantry "became obedi- 
ent to Roman laws and institutions, used the Latin 
tongue, and had indeed become entirely Roman- 
ised." Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, Professor of 
English Literature at Cambridge, in a recently 
published volume of lectures, says: "I see a people 
which for four hundred years was permeated by 
Rome. If you insist on its being a Teutonic people 
(which I flatly deny), then you have one, which 
alone of Teutonic peoples, has inherited the Roman 
gift of consolidating conquest, of colonising in the 
wake of its armies; of driving the road, bridging 
the ford, bringing the lawless under its sense of 
law." 

Then the reader may remind me there was 
the later influence of the Norman invasion. We 



RACE SUPERIORITY 69 

know from general history its effect upon nation- 
ality. It is Lord Lyttleton, the historian of 
Henry II, who says : "It must also be confessed that 
so long as the Anglo-Saxons were masters of Eng- 
land, that kingdom was of no account in the system 
of Europe ; but grew to have weight and authority 
on the Continent under the government of the Nor- 
mans, both from the dominions which the princes 
of that race possessed in France, and from their 
active ambition which, seconded by the enterpris- 
ing and warlike disposition of all their nobility, 
rendered the English name respected and illus- 
trious abroad." 

But the effect of the Norman invasion was to 
strengthen the Nordic strain rather than that of 
the Mediterranean, for the Normans were Nord- 
ics. Mr. Grant tells us: "The Normans landed in 
Normandy in the year 911 A.D. They were 
heathen Danish barbarians, speaking a Teutonic 
language. The religion, culture and language of 
the old Romanised populations worked a miracle 
on the transformation of everything except blood 
in one short century. So quick was the change that 
155 years later the descendants of the same Nor- 
mans landed in England as Christian Frenchmen, 
armed with all the culture of their period. The 
change was startling, but the blood of the Norman 
brood remained unchanged and entered England 
as a purely Nordic type." 

Thus the inhabitants of the British Isles, 
originally of Mediterranean blood, were crossed 



70 THE CLASH 

by the Nordic blood of Danish tribes, then by the 
Mediterranean blood of Romans, again by Nordic 
blood from the shores of Scandinavia and Ger- 
many, and finally by Nordic blood by way of Nor- 
mandy. This latest, and in some ways strongest 
blood infusion, is of double interest to Canadians; 
for in it English- and French-Canadians have com- 
mon ancestry. Mr. Grant says that the French- 
Canadians are of the Alpine race, because they are 
"largely from Brittany." But Mr. Grant should 
stick to ethnology; he is out of his province in the 
history of Canada's colonisation. The French did 
not come to Canada largely from Brittany, the 
North-West corner of France into which the Al- 
pines had been crowded. Nor did they come 
largely from Southern France, in which the Medi- 
terranean race continued to prevail after the Al- 
pine and Nordic invasions had subsided. We know 
whence almost every Frenchman came who en- 
tered Canada between 1615-1700. There is no 
people in the world whose genealogy has been 
more clearly traced than that of the French-Cana- 
dians. Most of them came from those very prov- 
inces whose inhabitants Mr. Grant and ethnologists 
say were almost purely of Nordic or Baltic blood. 
The births and migrations of the French-Cana- 
dians have been preserved with remarkable fidelity 
in parish "registres." 

Very recently the excellent work done by Mgr. 
Tanguay, I'abbe Ferland, M. E. Rameau and M. 
Benjamin Suite in tracing the source of French 



RACE SUPERIORITY 71 

migration to this country has been carried further 
towards completion by M. I'abbe S. A. Lortie, a 
professor of Laval University. In view of the 
importance of the subject and the controversies 
which have waged around it, I make no apologies 
for reproducing the results of Professor Lortie's 
labors in the table (on the following page), which 
indicates the number and origin of French emi- 
grants arriving in Canada from 1608 to 1700. 

It will be seen that within Normandy — not Brit- 
tany, as stated by Mr. Grant — lies the secret of 
the ethnology of the French-Canadian population. 
It was from Normandy the first settlers came, and 
naturally it was the first settlers who left the strong- 
est blood strain within the colony. Many of them 
were great grand-sires and grand-dams with 
numerous progeny when the later colonists began 
to climb the banks of the St. Lawrence. An official 
statement in 1680, estimated that four-fifths of the 
Canadian population were either "Normans by 
birth or by parentage, or had married Norman 
wives." The settlers who came from Paris, were, 
for the most part, officials, priests and merchants; 
the men who went on the land were mainly from 
Normandy and adjoining provinces — and of 
Nordic blood. 

"What an upsetting of tables when the works of 
ethnologist and of historian are fitted together! The 
French-Canadians can no longer reproach us with 
what is now a rather unpopular Teutonic ancestry 
— although Heaven knows it is virile enough — 



72 



THE CLASH 



Origin of Migrants, 
BY Provinces 



Angoumois 

Anjou 

Artois . 

Aunis, He de Rhe, He 

d'Ol^ron 

Auvergne 

B^arn 

Beauce. 

Berry 

Bourgogne 

Bourbonnais 

Bretagne 

Brie 

Champagne 

Comt6 de Foix 

Dauphin6 

Flandre, Hainaut. . . . 

Franche-Comt6 

Gascogne 

Guyenne , . 

Ile-de-France 

Languedoc 

Limousin. ...» 

Lorraine 

Lyonnais 

Maine 

Marche 

Nivernais 

Normandie 

Orl^anais 

Perche 

Pdrigord , . . . . 

Picardie 

Poitou 

Provence . . 

Roussillon 

Saintonge 

Savoie 

Touraine 

Totals . . 



Number of Migrants 



Periods of Migration 



1608 

to 
1640 



23 



14 



36 



89 

4 

89 



296 



1640 
to 
1660 



13 

56 

2 

115 
3 
1 

22 
5 
6 
1 

9 
7 

23 
1 

4 
1 



76 
1 

5 
6 
3 

66 
1 

2 

270 

7 

122 
1 
7 

54 
3 

37 

2] 



1660 

to 

1680 



54 

60 

9 

293 
18 

1 
46 
32 
36 

2 

108 

25 

76 

1 

14 
11 

1 
22 
61 
378 
26 
26 

7 

13 
31 

1 

4 
481 
33 
24 
28 
60 
357 
13 

2 
140 

6 
42 



964 2542 1092 



1680 

to 

1700 



26 

21 

3 

93 
14 

8 

23 
11 
21 

5 
54 

2 
23 

"e 

3 

5 

24 
55 
131 
23 
44 

2 
16 
15 

4 

1 

118 

19 

3 

16 

18 

158 

6 

87 

6 

28 



E o 



J2 o 

93 

139 

14 

524 
35 
10 

105 

49 

64 

8 

175 
36 

129 
2 

24 

15 

6 

51 

124 

62 1 
50 
75 
16 
33 

113 
6 
7 

958 
63 

238 
45 
96 

569 

22 

2 

274 

12 

91 

4894 



RACE SUPERIORITY 73 

without reflecting upon their own blood; and we 
can no longer sneer at Mediterranean "lack of 
virility" in their blood without reflecting upon 
ours. 

"These latter day Normans," says Mr. Grant, 
referring to the descendants of the "Latinised 
Vikings," who once conquered England, "are 
natural rulers and administrators, and it is to this 
type that England largely owes her extraordinary 
ability to govern justly and firmly the lower 
races." 

It is probably true. The ancestors of the French- 
Canadians taught the Angles and Saxons and the 
Welsh (when they could get hold of them) 
to cut their hair, shave their faces, and be 
better mannered over their plates and less intemper- 
ate in their cups; but there is no evidence, as Mr. 
Grant intimates, that they became a superior caste. 
As we shall find, they introduced learning into 
England, of v/hich there was, apparently, sad need, 
since before they had obtained "possession of Eng- 
land, learning and religion were brought to so low 
a state in that kingdom that most of the clergy 
could hardly read divine service; and, if, happily, 
any one of them understood grammar, he was ad- 
mired and wondered at by the rest as a prodigy," 
but neither grammar nor manners, nor ability to 
rule, remained the exclusive possessions of the Nor- 
mans who became Englishmen. The "original" 
Mediterraneans, the Angles, and the Saxons, who 



74 THE CLASH 

inhabited the kingdom, acquiring these things, 
have taken their full share in British administra- 
tion. 

For reasons over which we had no control, 
neither all French-Canadian nor all English-Cana- 
dian skulls measure uniformly according to 
Nordic or Mediterranean or Alpine types. If, as 
we are told, "it is to the Mediterranean race in the 
British Isles that the English, Scotch, and Ameri- 
cans owe whatever brunet characters they possess," 
then innumerable thousands have been mistaken in 
imagining themselves pure-bred descendants of 
the Angles and Saxons. History will have it, and 
ethnology, too, that neither of us is pure-bred, 
and that both of us are mainly of the same cross- 
breeding. He who would attempt to assign to one a 
greater proportion of Nordic skulls and to the 
other a greater proportion of Mediterranean skulls, 
or attempt to arrive at racial difference by finding 
a few Alpine skulls in one, and none in the other, 
would be counting hairs, if not actually splitting 
them. 

Ethnologists are not working merely to satisfy 
curiosity. They seek to show, by their investiga- 
tions, that races have special aptitudes for certain 
pursuits. "The Alpine race," says Mr. Grant, "is 
always and everywhere a race of peasants, an agri- 
cultural, and never a maritime people," while the 
"Nordics are, all over the world, a race of sol- 
diers, sailors, adventurers, and explorers, but 
above all, of rulers, organisers, and aristocrats." 



RACE SUPERIORITY 75 

The Mediterranean race, "while inferior in bodily 
stamina to both the Nordic and the Alpine, is 
probably the superior of both, certainly of the Al- 
pines, in intellectual attainments. In the field of 
art its superiority to both the other European races 
is unquestioned." This grouping is not altogether 
new to us. We have been accustomed to speak of 
the Anglo-Saxon, as a soldier, a sailor, an explorer, 
and a ruler of men; and of the Latin as the Anglo- 
Saxon's inferior in bodily stamina, — and, some- 
times — his superior in the intellectual arts. Of 
course, Latins put the thing somewhat differ- 
ently, but men who thought themselves Anglo- 
Saxons have written most of the English books 
on the subject. It is a significant fact that it 
is for "good red blood" we admire our ancestors, 
rather than for their sense of justice and benevolent 
disposition. We never tire of boasting that 
the blood of Vikings courses our veins, in 
spite of the fact that they spitted children 
on their spears and brutally maltreated the 
women of the coasts they ravaged. I have sev- 
eral friends who swell with pride in relating the 
sheep-stealing exploits of their Scottish Highland 
ancestors. All is forgiven in the memory of the 
"good red blood" which made them first in war 
and first in discovery. But since science has estab- 
lished that a fair portion of Englishmen — and 
Irishmen, too — are of the Mediterranean race, is 
it not time that we revised our ideas of race charac- 



76 THE CLASH 

teristics? Does history bear out these generalisa- 
tions of racial aptitudes? 

The two Polos, who, first of Europeans, made 
their way "through barren wildernesses, across 
burning deserts, in the face of hardships indescrib- 
able," who showed the way from Europe to the 
Far East, were merchants of Venice, and pre- 
sumably of the Mediterranean race; and, of course, 
the famous Marco Polo, the son of one and nephew 
of the other, the favourite and mendacious mes- 
senger of Kublai Khan, was also a Venetian. 
Bartholomew Diaz, who first beat a way round the 
Cape of Storms, afterwards called Cape of Good 
Hope, was a Mediterranean, working for the 
Mediterranean King of Portugal. Christopher 
Columbus, who, more than any other man, may be 
said to have "turned the world upside down," was 
an Italian, born in Genoa; and Amerigo Vespucci, 
who wished his name upon the New World, was 
also a Mediterranean, as were most of the sailors 
who sailed across the Atlantic to the New World. 
There is a tradition that the Nordic Lief had 
sailed from nearby Iceland to North America 
and named it Vineland, nearly 500 years before 
Columbus "discovered America." But if we are 
to credit the Nordic race with that achievement, 
we must also debit it with lack of courage or 
lack of enterprise in failing to make another 
trip. The Scandinavians, the progenitors of the 
Nordic race, have been established in Greenland 



RACE SUPERIORITY 11 

and Iceland since the ninth century, and, appar- 
ently, did not discover the inhabitants of the West- 
ern Continent — and, strangely enough, were not 
discovered by them. They were content to keep 
on sailing the North and Baltic Seas. 

"Our sea-steed through the foam goes prancing, 
While shields and spears and helms are glancing; 

From Fjord to sea 

Our ships ride free, 
And down the wind, with swelling sail. 
We scud before the gathering gale." 

The ballads and tales of the old Viking days 
fairly snort with virility, but, as one of their sup- 
posed descendants, some day I am going to ask — 
when I meet them in the next world — why they 
allowed the world's great prizes in overseas' 
discovery to go to the farther away, "less virile," 
Mediterraneans. 

The red-blooded Nordic, Sir Francis Drake, 
sailed around the world in 1557; but he was half 
a century too late to make the voyage a race 
achievement; he was fifty years behind the Medi- 
terranean Ferdinand Magellan, backed by the 
Mediterranean State of Spain. The indomitable 
Magellan lost his life before the voyage was com- 
pleted, but his ship was brought to port by the 
Mediterranean Captain del Cano. Balboa of the 
Mediterranean race, was the first to see the Pacific 
Ocean. The Mediterranean Vasco da Gama was 
the first European to reach India by water. Eng- 



78 THE CLASH 

land's great discovery of Newfoundland was con- 
ducted under the leadership of the Italian Cabot, 
although the Portuguese declared that one of their 
countrymen, Cortereal, also a Mediterranean, had 
"discovered the land of the codfish in 1463." 
There is little doubt that Portuguese and Spanish 
discovered "the Island Continent," and signifi- 
cantly named it Terra Australis. And so runs 
the story of Mediterranean discovery on through 
the South Sea Islands, along the coasts of Africa 
and Asia to the Island Kingdom of Japan. Even 
the heroic old Anglo-Saxon, Captain Cook, was 
constantly discovering things in the South Seas 
that had been already visited by Mediterranean 
men. 

In spite of our preconceived ideas, and in spite 
of the race aptitudes set down by ethnologists, the 
pages of history show that the Mediterraneans (the 
Latins), despised as "inferior in bodily stamina," 
did the big things that are only done by strong 
men. If anything be required to make the situa- 
tion more unconsoling, we have but to remember 
there was usually a priest in the offing. 

"And then the great Laudamus rose to heaven." 

Was it by accident that Mediterraneans lead the 
Nordics in discovery? Since ethnologists tell us 
they c^me to Europe from "foreign parts," it may 
have been a sort of homing instinct which carried 
them back to "new lands," which, after all, were 



RACE SUPERIORITY 79 

only new in the sense that they were unknown to 
Europeans. 

And, the Alpines — we must not forget them, al- 
though the controversy in Canada has been mainly 
over the merits of Northern and Southern blood. 
Mr. Grant, erroneously naming the Alpines of 
Brittany as the chief French-Canadian ancestors, 
concludes that they are an "indigestible" part of 
the population. But why should men who came 
from the British Islands find in Bretons a race with 
which it is impossible, or even difficult, to coalesce? 
Dr. Beddoe, in his learned essay on "The Races of 
Britain," points out that in the period when Eng- 
land was subject to invasion, "Bretons came over in 
large numbers;" and further intimates that in some 
measure the Bretons are descended from Britons 
who, in the fifth century, made a part of Brit- 
tany's sea coast their own. While both English- 
and French-Canadians are more indebted to the 
Normans for ancestry than to other groups from 
Old France, both are to a lesser, but still an ap- 
preciable extent, obliged to recognize Picards, 
Mainards, Angevins — and Bretons — also as ances- 
tors. Nor need those with broad skulls, who, 
speaking French or English, and having reason to 
suspect themselves (especially Cornishmen) of 
Breton descent, worry over Mr. Grant's conclusion 
that the Alpines are "a race of peasants, and never 
a maritime people," for our encyclopedias de- 
scribes the Breton as "a bold seaman and a steady 
soldier." Remembering the glorious achieve- 



80 THE CLASH 

ments of the men of St. Malo they will probably 
prefer to believe the encyclopedias. 

The English-Canadian has been claiming for his 
race superior merit in colonising, and is usually 
unwilling to admit his first cousin, the French- 
Canadian, to equal credit. "It is true that one 
often hears the Frenchman called a poor colonist. 
But when Canadians say this, I wonder what they 
mean," writes McGill's Professor of History. 
"Obviously the first merit of a colonist is power to 
take root and hold his own, whether against the 
aborigines or the forces of nature. If we judge by 
this criterion, the French in Canada are among 
the best colonists of whom we have any record. 
Left with an axe in his hand amid the solitudes of 
a primeval forest, the French settler knows what 
to do, even though, like Louis Hebert, he is a 
Parisian apothecary. And as for initiative, where 
can more enterprising explorers be found than the 
whole line of those who, from Champlain to La 
Verendrye, lay bare the recesses of North America, 
while the English were content to linger between 
the Atlantic and the Alleghanies?" 

The Nordics are "above all, rulers, organisers, 
and aristocrats," according to Mr. Grant. But 
what of Napoleon, who, coming from the Island 
of Corsica, was of the Mediterranean race? He 
was both soldier and ruler par excellence. It is 
true that he came to an end untimely for his years, 
— and so have many of our great statesmen in mod- 
ern parliamentary times. What of Lloyd-George, 



RACE SUPERIORITY 81 

who, as a Welshman, according to Mr. Grant's 
generalisation, ought surely to have Mediter- 
ranean blood in his veins? What of Cortes, who, 
with a little army of 450 men, bullied and butch- 
ered his way to conquest in Central America? 
Surely he was soldier, ruler, and aristocrat of the 
right blood I Further, his achievements could be 
almost duplicated by a further turning of the pages 
of Spanish and Portuguese history. If history will 
have it that we English-Canadians are originally 
and copiously of Latin blood, let us make the best 
of it. Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch goes the full dis- 
tance, and in a lecture on the Lineage of English 
Literature, says : "I hazard that the most important 
thing in our blood is that purple drop of the im- 
perial murex we derive from Rome." 

The field is inviting, and one is disposed to fol- 
low the men of the Mediterranean race as "rulers, 
soldiers, and aristocrats"; but it is necessary to go 
back to our unravelling of the Canadian race gar- 
ment, remembering that the French-Canadians are 
none the better for their share of Anglo-Saxon 
blood, and we are none the worse for our share 
of "Latin" blood. 

There are race differences, it is true, and these 
differences affect nationalities: but the doctrine 
'that God gave one race an inherent superiority over 
another, is the nostrum of those who want some- 
thing for nothing; the consolation of those, who, 
finding little commended by others in their own 
lives, fall back upon the achievements of race as a 



82 THE CLASH 

source of pride. The doctrine of race superiority 
is particularly out of place in Canada, since it is 
without a scintilla of support. It is "important to 
get rid of the old notion that there is a fundamental 
physical difference between the average English- 
man and the average North Frenchman," writes 
Dr. Holland Rose of Christ's College, Cambridge, 
a deep student of matters affecting race and nation- 
ality. It naturally follows that it is equally 
important to get rid of the old notion that there is 
a fundamental physical difference between their 
descendants, the average English-Canadian and the 
average French-Canadian; it is more than ordinar- 
ily important, it is essential, to rid ourselves of that 
notion, if we are to deal with Canadian national 
problems in the light of the truth that is alone 
worth while. 

The theory of inherent race superiority has been 
time and time again blown up, and yet as often 
revived by a race which seeks to dominate, which 
pursuing its own advantage at the expense of an- 
other, seeks to ease its conscience by the pleasing 
idea that it is the will of God that the fittest should 
dominate. To those who still persist in believing 
in race superiority, I commend this sentence from 
Mills' "Principles of Political Economy": "I 
cordially subscribe to the remark of one of the 
greatest thinkers of our time, who says of the sup- 
posed differences of race, 'of all vulgar modes of 
escaping from the consideration of the effect of 
social and moral influence on the human mind, the 



RACE SUPERIORITY 83 

most vulgar is that of attributing the diversitiee of 
conduct and character to inherent natural differ- 
ences.' " 

Books of Reference 

Madison Grant, The Passing of the Great Race. Scrib- 
ner. 

M. I'abbe S.-A. Lortie, Origine des Premiers Colons 
canadiens-frangais (Premier Congres de la Langue fran- 
?aise du Canada). L' Action Sociale Limitee. 

Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, On the Art of Writing. 
Cambridge University Press, Dent. 

J. Holland Rose, Nationality in Modern History. Mac- 
millan. 

William Bennett Munro, The Seigniorial System in 
Canada. Harvard University Press. 

Dr. Beddoe, The Races of Britain. London. 



CHAPTER VI 



THE TRADE ARGUMENT 



While the conviction of ethnical superiority is 
shaken by the hard figures of the measuring stick 
when read in the light of history, and its last refuge 
is crumbling upon the battle-fields of Europe and 
Asia, the belief in the superiority of nationality — 
the result of language, education, tradition, reli- 
gion, and the like — persists. A precise dis- 
tinction between race and national characteristics, 
that which men have inherited and that which they 
have themselves acquired under group influences, 
cannot be always maintanied. Nor have I sought 
to maintain it, since the object of our investigation 
is to be accomplished by remembering the ex- 
istence of the difference. 

It seems to be inevitable that men will call the 
achievements of their own nationality best. 

"What strange infatuations rule mankind! 
How narrow are our prospects, how confined! 
With universal vanity possessed, 
We fondly think our own ideas best." 

While there is no harm, and often a great good, 
in the conviction of the worth of one's own nation- 
ality, even when it is only a pleasant deception, 
there is grievous harm in the comparisons that 
inevitably follow. The average English-Cana- 

84 



THE TRADE ARGUMENT 85 

dian is convinced that he is a superior man. He 
does not appear to realise that belief in super- 
iority is universal, and only its manner of ex- 
pression local. This belief is closely associated 
with patriotism, and might be helpful rather than 
harmful, were it not persistently accompanied by 
an overweening desire to make over the inferior 
nationality. Then the belief becomes dangerous; 
it amounts to an hallucination, which candid opin- 
ion has diagnosed as megalomania; it is dangerous, 
because force rather than persuasion is its means 
of assertion. 

Mohammed's crusade was primarily that of a 
megalomaniac, since it contained the element of 
belief in divine direction, a characteristic sign of 
the disease. "There is one God; and through me, 
Mohammed, that God summons you to submit to 
Him." That was the teaching of Mohammed 
which pushed a smaller world into pretty much 
the same trouble that we are in to-day. Moham- 
medans were superior to the rest of mankind; by 
the will of God, the rest of mankind should be 
raised to the level of Mohammedans. 

The Germans argue pretty much the same way. 
They are not merely wicked in promulgating Teu- 
tonism. "Deutschland uber alles!" has become a 
divine command. They have seen their virtues 
reflected in the mirror of their own ideals, and 
have been struck with collective egoism. They 
have measured men by their own accomplishments 
and found them inferior, failing to recognise that 



86 THE CLASH 

the rest of mankind may not have done what they 
have done simply because the rest of mankind did 
not want to. That is true of most men who pro- 
claim national superiority. We can clearly see 
the megalomania of the Germans; but the Germans 
cannot see it; nor can we see our own. That is a 
typical symptom of the disease. 

There is this to be said for the Germans: they 
have been, according to their lights, really great. 
They argue, with some force, that the Slavs of 
Poland are their inferiors in achievement; that is 
why the German philosopher places so much 
emphasis upon the necessity of the Slav accepting 
the Teutonic mind. It was the late Herr Althoff 
who is reported by Prince Von Biilow to have said : 
"We Germans are the most learned nation in the 
world, and the best soldiers. We have achieved 
great things in all the sciences and arts ; the great- 
est philosophers, the greatest poets and musicians 
are Germans. Of late we have occupied the fore- 
most place in the natural sciences and in almost all 
technical spheres, and, in addition to that, we have 
accomplished an enormous industrial develop- 
ment." Then added the candid, knowing, Althoff, 
"How can you wonder that we are political asses? 
There must be a weak point somewhere." 

The Slavonic German is not as good a business 
man as the Teutonic German. Therefore, Slavism 
ought to be abandoned and all men within the 
German Empire merged in Teutonism — argue the 
Teutons. And there is some force in the argument. 



THE TRADE ARGUMENT 87 

Likewise, English-Canadians argue with some 
force that if French-Canadians were to accept the 
English-Canadian mind, they would be keener 
traders. Probably both Poles and French-Cana- 
dians — many of them at any rate — would admit so 
much of the argument, and yet cling tenaciously to 
their national birth-right, especially when in dan- 
ger of losing it by compulsion. 

How often have I heard men figure on the won- 
derful commercial strides this country would make 
if its population were all Anglo-Saxon. It may 
be true, but only a megalomaniac would urge it as 
a reason for forcing the English-Canadian mind 
upon the French-Canadian. While statistics are 
not available, it may be accepted that "French- 
Canadians are not in big business, as are the Eng- 
lish-Canadians. Of course, there are exceptions 
— anyone can think of them — but the French- 
Canadians have 28 per cent, of the country's popu- 
lation and have not 28 per cent, of the country's 
interest in railways, manufacturing, commerce and 
finance. But the difference between the two na- 
tionalities in trade importance is not to be 
accounted for solely by difference in mentality. 

All things were changed for the old inhabitants 
after the Conquest, as they would be for the present 
inhabitants, if Germany were to win the war. There 
were new trade channels ; the old way to Paris was 
closed and the new ways led to New York and 
London. There was a new credit system, with 



88 THE CLASH 

which the French-Canadian was unfamiliar, and 
in which he was unknown. The French-Canadian 
importer closed his shop doors and withdrew 
from the country, or remained open only to start 
over again in the retail trade. There was no manu- 
facturing, and when its era opened, some years 
later, under the shelter of the protective tariff, the 
French-Canadian was still handicapped by lack of 
credit. France has done little or nothing for her 
American sons who became British. The French- 
Canadian has proved himself an industrious, cap- 
able, quick-handed artisan, and in a number of in- 
dustries — the boot and shoe industry, for example 
— has more than held his own in ownership, man- 
agement and workmanship. 

In measuring what the French-Canadians have 
done and left undone in commerce and finance, we 
have habitually made a comparison with what 
has been accomplished in Canada, not only by Eng- 
lish-Canadians, but by the Englishmen of England 
and the Americans of the United States, as well. 
In the comparison, we must not forget that our 
railways and our industries generally have been 
built up by money largely obtained from the 
United Kingdom and the United States. England 
has taken the lead in advancing funds for the rail- 
ways, and the United States for industrials. It is 
surprising how many large manufacturing houses 
in Canada are but branches of larger houses across 
the boundary-line, and how many others, com- 



THE TRADE ARGUMENT 89 

menccd as Canadian and remaining under Cana- 
dian management, have been expanded by the aid 
of New York and Chicago finance. 

The extent and sources of our financial opera- 
tions in recent years for industrial and railway 
purposes, are shown in the following tables, re- 
cently compiled by the Dominion Securities Cor- 
poration. Here is the table in reference to the 
railways : 

Year. Canada. United States. Gt. Britain Total. 

1911 $549,500 $4,249,500 $95,673,700 $100,472,700 

1912 150,000 13,290,000 56,532,320 69,972,320 

1913 11,475,000 97.053,044 108,528,044 

1914 12,690,000 46,715,666 59,405,666 

1915 17,500,000 20,415,665 37,915,665 

1916 15,920,000 15,920,000 

1917 200.000 17,500,000 4,866,666 22,566,666 
Total $899,500 $92,624,500 $321,257,061 $414,781,061 

And here is the table in reference to industrials 
and miscellaneous undertakings: 

Year. Canada. United States. Gt. Britain. Total. 

1911 $26,814,000 $10,970,000 $75,722/)00 $113,506,000 

1912 22,484,000 13,700,000 82,727,000 118,911,000 

1913 18,832,800 13,360,000 64,245,976 96.438,776 

1914 4,744,540 11,395.000 27,586,100 43,725,640 

1915 5,775,000 13,140,000 3,740,000 22,655,000 

1916 5,430,999 32,185,000 4.866,666 42,482,665 

1917 11,097,800 21,340,000 55,000 32.492,800 
Total $95,179,139 $116,090,000 $258,942,742 $470,211,881 

Mr. Fred. W. Field, of the "Monetary Times," 
is my authority for saying that there are not less 

8 



90 THE CLASH 

than 2,914 million dollars of British money, and 
637 million dollars of American money, invested m 
this country. Naturally, these funds and the 
things which they represent are largely under the 
control of English-speaking men. According to 
Mr. Field, the Americans of the United States 
have 81 million dollars in Canadian lumber mills 
and standing timber ; have as much, if not more, in 
Canadian mines; and, further, have large invest- 
ments in the meat-packing industries, the manufac- 
ture of agricultural implements, and manufactur- 
ing generally. The progress of these industries is 
generally regarded as indistinguishable from that 
of Canada. But there is a difference. For since 
the investments have come from the United King- 
dom or the United States, the profits must natur- 
ally go back to the United Kingdom or the United 
States. A fev^ moments' work with pencil and 
paper will show that each year an astonishing sum 
must be exported from Canada to satisfy these 
obligations. Since the French-Canadians have 
borrowed less from abroad, the profits from the 
industries under their control remain more within 
the country. 

These things must be taken into account in com- 
paring what the two nationalities are doing to sus- 
tain the economic life of the country. 

No! the French-Canadian failure to hold a place 
in the country's trade and finance, comparable to 
its population, is not all explainable by difference 
in mentality. And yet I am inclined to think that 



THE TRADE ARGUMENT 91 

mentality has something to do with the English- 
Canadian's more important position in trade. 

Recently I was discussing these national issues 
with a Member of the Canadian Parliament — he is 
not a back-bencher — when he remarked that all 
Protestant countries were richer than Roman 
Catholic countries. Scotland's wealth, wrung 
from Scotland's barren hills, was compared with 
Italy's poverty, in striking contrast with the fertil- 
ity of Italy's soil. After a little while I found that 
the illustration was advanced as evidence of the 
greater aptitude of the Protestant mind for trade, 
an argument for the crucible of the public school 
in Ontario, and the religious and national con- 
version of the French-Canadians. The argument 
is not new; you can hear it wherever race and reli- 
gious controversies are discussed. The evidence is 
too exhaustive for our present analysis. But if it 
be true that the Protestant serves mammon more 
industriously than the Roman Catholic, and with 
greater rewards, then it is equally true that the 
Jew serves mammon still more industriously; yet 
none but a jester would urge, on that account, 
that Protestants and Catholics should be delivered 
into the Rabbi's hands. 

I am not now asserting that in business the 
Roman Catholic is inferior to the Protestant, that 
the Protestant is inferior to the Jew; but such asser- 
tions have been made so often that they are gen- 
erally believed. Jews do not parade their business 
acumen as a bait for proselytes; nor do any 



92 THE CLASH 

number of Protestants accept Judaism on that 
account. Neither religious nor national ideas arc 
tangible matters to be weighed like wool and salt 
on commercial scales. While success in trade is 
not to be despised, as it is by some, neither is it to 
be exalted, as it is by others, out of its due propor- 
tion in the achievements of mankind. The argu- 
ment for general acceptance of the English-Cana- 
dian mind and general use of the English language, 
is strongest when expressed in dollars and cents, 
but would English-Canadians sell their national 
birthright for the same consideration? 

The situation of the two nationalities in Canada 
is not without precedent. The Germans have built 
a huge net-work of railways in Alsace and Lor- 
raine; the provinces conquered in 1871 have been 
converted into "hives of industry" by German 
talent for practical things. But the Alsatians and 
Lorrainers, sharing in the prosperity, have not 
accepted the Teutonic Lutheran mind, which is 
generally credited as its creator. Jacques Preiss, 
of Colmar, in Alsace, as a member of the Reichs- 
tag, forcibly expressed the limitation of the influ- 
ence of materialism over nationalism, in these 
words: "History will say: The German Empire 
succeeded in conquering Alsace and Lorraine 
materially, but its administration did not know 
how to conquer her morally, did not know how to 
win the heart and soul of the people." There is a 
vital something lacking in the argument of trade 
advantage when applied to nationality. 



THE TRADE ARGUMENT 93 

Again, at the risk of being blamed for repetition, 
I would have the reader bear in mind that I am 
referring only to national tendencies and national 
emphases. Of course, there are many English- 
Canadians who have neither inclination nor 
aptitude for trade, while there are many French- 
Canadians who have both. It is only in a general 
sense that one nationality sets more store than the 
other upon commerce and has a greater aptitude 
for it. 

Canada is ambitious for an export trade in manu- 
factured products, and already several organisa- 
tions are in existence to promote the country's com- 
mercial interest when peace has restored the safety 
of the seas. The Government even now is supposed 
to be engaged busily in surveying the country's 
natural resources out of which foreign commerce 
can be created; and in a class with our iron ores, 
our timber, our hydraulic power, our waterways 
and railways, our factory buildings and machinery, 
we should include our ability to use as working 
tools the two great languages in which the world's 
commerce is conducted. 

The Englishman has never excelled in the use 
of languages, and has largely depended upon the 
services of others as interpreters. It appears that 
before the war Germans were employed by the 
British Government as interpreters in commercial 
and other matters. With the knowledge we now 
have of the character and extent of German espion- 
age, the nature of these services becomes apparent, 



94 THE CLASH 

as well as the identity of their real employers. 
Before the war the British public had been warned 
that many of the Germans, who, by reason of lin- 
guistic attainments, had secured employment in 
governments and in export businesses overseas, 
were but the paid officials of the German Govern- 
ment and German trade associations, but without 
avail. How much of the phenomenal and appar- 
ently inexplicable success of German foreign trade 
has been built upon information derived by those 
agents who penetrated into the secret places of offi- 
cial trade information of the British Government, 
is only a matter of interesting speculation; the 
important fact is that the weakness of the old sys- 
tem has been acknowledged, and Great Britain is 
making preparations to render herself and her sub- 
jects self-contained in the matter of languages af- 
fecting foreign commerce. 

The Canadian Government, through the Depart- 
ment of Trade and Commerce, publishes weekly a 
bulletin, providing commercial information for the 
guidance of the trade interests of Canada, and in 
an issue of February, 1916, states that: 

"A special committee of the Aberdeen Chamber of 
Commerce, appointed to consider the question of trade 
after the war, has drawn up a series of resolutions. These 
recommend that a Ministry of Commerce be formed ; the 
British consuls should be of British origin, with fuller 
powers for the development of British trade; that our 
system of education be revised, with particular reference 
to modern languages, which should be made compulsory 
subjects in all universities," 



THE TRADE ARGUMENT 95 

Sir Charles Wakefield, the Lord Mayor of Lon- 
don, speaking about the same time of the new alli- 
ance with France, referred to the importance of 
this matter in the following words : 

"However necessary a knowledge of the French lan- 
guage and literature was before the war, it is obvious 
that the most sacred alliance in which the two nations 
are now united make such a knowledge absolutely 
essential. We have been great friends in the past, and 
our friendship will be infinitely increased by our fight- 
ing shoulder to shoulder in this terrible conflict. In 
future a mutual study of each other's languages should 
be a compulsory part of the curriculum of every college 
and school in the respective countries." 

The French language a compulsory part of the 
curriculum of every college and school in Eng- 
land! And why not? There is nothing that would 
more advance British trade throughout the 
world. Yet French is taught in the High Schools 
of Ontario, in the University of Toronto, and — 
I speak from experience — few are the graduates 
who can use it in life's work. I can remember 
my own silly astonishment — and envy — at first 
hearing the newsboys of Montreal glibly speak the 
French that had cost me so many hours of labour. 
The command of languages does not come easily to 
the youth trained in Ontario's English schools. The 
French-Canadian may not have the English-Cana- 
dian's aptitude for the practical sciences, but he 
has a greater aptitude for modern languages. If, 
as we are told, the French-Canadian is not as quick 
at mathematics as the English-Canadian, then is 
the Ontario Government going to make him 



96 THE CLASH 

quicker by insisting that he be instructed matlie- 
matically solely in a language in which he necessa- 
rily thinks with greater difficulty? Is Ontario 
serving the national interest any better by limiting 
instruction in the French language to an hour a 
day? Having in mind our foreign trade aspira- 
tion, such restriction appears to be a deliberate 
destruction of one of the country's "natural" re- 
sources. We might, with equal advantage, set fire 
to our forests. Our great advantage over other 
countries in the competition for foreign trade that 
is to be after the war, will lie in our command of 
the language required for successful international 
salesmanship. 

Hitherto it has not required much effort to dis- 
pose of such products as we had for export. Our 
trade has been principally in cereals, cheese, pork, 
and lumber; and the two great English-speaking 
countries. Great Britain and the United States, 
have been our principal customers. But war com- 
merce has opened up visions of new foreign trade. 
In the twelve months prior to the declaration of 
war, Canada exported manufactured goods to 
the value of sixty-three million dollars; for the 
twelve months ending November, 1917, these ex- 
ports reached the astonishing total of 703 million 
dollars in value. Although built up, for the most 
part, by war munitions, manufacturers will not, 
at the close of the war, yield without a struggle 
their new footing in foreign markets. Taught 
economy and efficiency by war conditions, and con- 



THE TRADE ARGUMENT 97 

fidcncc through initial success, Canadian manufac- 
turers will do their best to maintain a permanent 
overseas demand for goods made in the land of the 
industrious beaver. There will be bridges to be 
built in Flanders, Poland, and France; railways 
to be constructed ; huge structures of steel and con- 
crete to be erected. Our entrepreneurs think they 
ought to have a share of this business. And with 
reason. They have men trained in this work, from 
the skilled foreman to the clerk in charge of fin- 
ance, who are conversant with the two great lan- 
guages of commerce. Without delay, they can sub- 
mit tenders and specifications in the accepted lan- 
guage of the buyer, and can carry the work 
through minus the inevitable misunderstandings 
that arise through a lack of knowledge of the lan- 
guage of the buying country. Nor are our oppor- 
tunities limited to the building trades. In the 
paper and pulp industries, in the making of agri- 
cultural implements and a number of other com- 
modities, we possess the necessary raw materials, 
cheap power, and experience ; we can turn out our 
goods at a factory cost as low or lower than any 
other country ; the turning point in advantage may 
well lie in the salesmanship that depends on being 
able to speak the language and understand the 
mind of the buyer. 

Already Canada has made a respectable begin- 
ning in foreign industries. There are in Mexico 
important public utilities (tramway, light, power, 
and water services) mainly owned by Canadians 



98 THE CLASH 

and managed by them. These undertakings natur- 
ally involve frequent communications with Gov- 
ernment and municipal officials. If the Company's 
representative has command of the Spanish lan- 
guage there is no difficulty, for it is the mother 
tongue of the country. If he be conversant with only 
the English language, then the interests he represents 
must suffer all the disabilities of communication by 
means of an interpreter. If, however, he speaks 
French, the interpreter is unnecessary, as French 
is the language of official life in Mexico. There 
are important public utilities controlled and man- 
aged by Canadians in South America; if the 
Canadians in charge cannot speak Portuguese, they 
are usually compelled to resort to the unsatis- 
factory services of an interpreter, unless they 
know French, for French is known and spoken in 
official circles of the Latin Republics. So it runs 
the world over. 

There is no intention to belittle the importance 
of the English language; through it a large por- 
tion of the world's commerce is conducted. But 
the English language is not all prevailing. That 
we must remember if we are to break through the 
shell of our present trade boundaries. The all- 
knowing Whittaker tells us that while 160 millions 
people speak English, 70 millions speak French, 
and 125 millions more speak in tongues kindred to 
French. Our advantage in salesmanship is evi- 
dent; our success ought to be limited only by our 
capacity to assemble materials and the means of 
transport. 



CHAPTER VII 



EDUCATION 



There was evidence in the last chapter that 
some of the difference between the material 
achievements of the two nationalities is due to dif- 
ferences in mentality, presumably the result of dif- 
ferences in education. If our conclusions had been 
formed upon the speeches made from certain hust- 
ings, we should have believed that it was almost 
the sole cause of differences in achievement. It is 
impossible, in this investigation, to go thoroughly 
into the subject of education, and the reader may 
well say: "Then, better leave it alone." But it is 
also impossible to escape reference to a subject 
which affects vitally the business in hand. The 
French-Canadians, almost solidly Roman Catholic, 
have been educated mainly in Church schools; 
and English-speaking Canadians, almost over- 
whelmingly Protestant, have been instructed 
mainly in State schools. We are, therefore, com- 
pelled to consider education, in spite of our hesita- 
tion to attempt the survey of such a controversial 
and comprehensive subject in a single chapter. 

Education and nationality are as closely and as 
confusedly related as the hen and the egg. Which 
came first, a hen or an egg, was a conundrum of 
my early youth, and if there be an answer I have 

99 



100 THE CLASH 

not yet heard it. The school makes the man, but 
the man makes the school that makes the man; 
schools are accountable for much of the French- 
Canadian character, and the French-Canadian 
character is accountable for the schools. And 
there we are, headed on our way round and round, 
until we remember that both school and man have 
evolved out of the traditions and ideals of the past. 

The man on the street too often sees only the pro- 
duct, and not the factory or field in which it was 
made or grown. He too seldom stops to ask Why? 
— and there is no particular reason why he should — 
unless, not being pleased with the product, he seeks 
to destroy it. Then, if he is depriving someone else 
of a pleasing something, as a reasonable man he 
ought to stop and ask. Why? That is the posi- 
tion we are in to-day in regard to the French-Eng- 
lish schools of Ontario. 

The average man in Ontario sees first — and 
sometimes last and always — the hand of a French 
priest intriguing to wrest the school from the 
legitimate authority of the State. He regards the 
common school as a unit produced by the State, 
upon which have been built the high school and 
the university, and believes that the Church is at- 
tempting to usurp the legitimate ownership of the 
State; but, of course, such a conception, in the light 
of history, is wholly erroneous. It was French 
priests who brought education first to Canada, and, 
curiously enough, it was French priests, who, if 
not responsible for introducing the school into 



EDUCATION 101 

England, were at least responsible for reviving it 
to such an extent that it became permanent in the 
country's life. Peter of Blois has given us an 
account of the early days of Cambridge in these 
quaint words: "Abbot Joffred sent over to his 
manor of Cotenham, nigh Cambridge, Gislebert, 
his fellow-monk and divinity professor, with three 
other monks, who followed him into England ; and, 
being well furnished with philosophical learning 
and other ancient sciences, they daily repaired to 
Cambridge, where they hired a publick barn, made 
open profession of the sciences, and in a little time 
drew a great number of scholars together. In less 
than two years their number encreased so much, 
out of all that country as well as the town, that 
there was not a house, barn, or church, big enough 
to hold them all. Upon which they dispersed 
themselves into several parts of the town, imitat- 
ing the university of Orleans. Betimes in the 
morning Frier Odo, an ex-grammarian and satyric 
poet, read grammar to the boys and younger 
sort, who were assigned him, according to the doc- 
trine of Priscian and Remigius upon him. At one 
o'clock, Terricus, a subtle sophist, read Aristotle's 
logick to the elder sort, according to Porphyry's 
and Averroe's introductions and comments. At 
three of the clock Frier William read lectures in 
Tully's rhetorick, and Quintilian's institutions. 
And Gislebert, the principal master, preached to 
the people upon all Sundays and holidays. From 
this small fountain we see large flowing streams, 



102 THE CLASH 

making glad the city of God, and enriching the 
whole kingdom with many masters and teachers, 
who came out of Cambridge, as from the holy 
paradise." 

The common schools came after the university. 
They were the outcome of the university, not the 
university the outcome of the common schools. 
Education works its way downwards, not upwards. 
In their inception, the common schools were also 
regarded as "flowing streams making glad the 
city of God." Not so many years ago that was a 
universal conception. There was a Laval in 
French-speaking Canada before there was a Har- 
vard in English-speaking America ; and both were 
Church institutions. From these seats of learning 
went forth the missionaries who founded what be- 
came the common schools of to-day. The Canadian 
schools were, in their inception, purely missions for 
teaching His Christian Majesty's language to little 
savages. Nor was the conception of the common 
schools, as "flowing streams making glad the city 
of God," changed at the Reformation. The object 
of the stream remained the same; there was 
change only in the channels. After a while, the 
channels that were made when the Reformation 
first began became more numerous, and, with the 
increasing number of sects, became divided and 
subdivided into big and little streams. But if his- 
tory is right, it was not on this account that the 
State assumed jurisdiction over education. It was 
because the State wished to turn the direction of 



EDUCATION 103 

the streams from the city of God to something else. 

It was Napoleon, says J. W. Headlam of Cam- 
bridge, in a chapter contributed to the "Unity of 
Western Civilisation," who first deliberately at- 
tempted "to convert the whole fabric of French 
schools and the university into an instrument for 
the organised propaganda of the cult of the Em- 
pire. Since then there is scarcely a government 
(always except that of England, which alone has 
been strong enough to rest on the native and undis- 
ciplined political sense of the people) which has 
not followed in his path. In particular, when the 
State is founded on the nation, the school is used 
to develop in the children the full consciousness of 
nationality. That institution, that was for so long 
the home of European unity, has become the most 
useful agent for the perpetuation and exaggeration 
of national differences." "In Trieste and in 
Poland," says Mr. Headlam, "in Alsace and in 
Macedonia, we find kings and politicians contend- 
ing for the minds and souls of children, and it is 
in the school, the college, and the university that 
has been prepared the conflict that is now devastat- 
ing Europe." 

It was only natural that, under the State, the 
whole idea of the school should become changed, 
for the school could not very well continue to be a 
stream making glad the city of God, since making 
glad the city of God was not always a plank in 
the program of the party in power. The school 
became secular, and in France, the home of the 



104 THE CLASH 

State school, it sometimes (depending on the Gov- 
ernment of the day) became not only non-religious 
but anti-religious. "It is said," declared an official 
appointed by the French Government to address 
the scholars, "that we have expelled God from the 
schools. It is an error; one can only expel that 
which exists, and God does not exist." 

The gospel preached in the school thus became 
identical with the gospel preached by the dominant 
political party, and varied according to its or the 
State's exigencies. Where the country was pushing 
its way to power, it was military greatness ; where 
the country was suspicious of aggression, it was 
very often, chauvinism instead of patriotism; 
where the country was seeking to be wealthy, it was 
production. Germany used its schools to foster the 
idea that the thing most worth while was the 
wealth and military power of Germany. ? The 
United States, teaching loyalty to the Stars and 
Stripes, designed its school curriculum for the 
commercial greatness of the United States. And 
English Canada followed all the example of the 
Americans of the United States, with the excep- 
tion of the design of the flag. 

In Canada and the United States, the education 
mills are designed and equipped to turn out pro- 
ducts tongued to fit the country's industrial grooves. 
Misunderstand me not, the subjects taught in these 
schools spread over a wide range, but the emphasis 
is upon that which makes for efficiency in factory 
and shrewdness in office. That is the plank of the 



EDUCATION 105 

party in power, and probably the plank of the 
party that wants to be in power. Some of us think 
that the principal economic function of this coun- 
try is agriculture, and that the country's agricul- 
tural interests are being sacrificed by the State 
school for industrialism. To that phase of the sub- 
ject we shall return in another chapter, for it is of 
more than passing interest. Certain it is that the 
efficiency of our schools is too often measured by 
the industrial needs of our cities and towns, and too 
seldom by the needs of the country as a whole. 
What passes for public opinion, let us not forget, is 
very often merely town opinion. It is more readily 
organised and more often appears in print, and 
thus becomes more generally accepted as the voice 
of the people. 

The reports made by Dr. Merchant and others 
on the rural French-English schools of the prov- 
ince revealed bad conditions. The public was 
shocked. But there were no equally search- 
ing investigations into the rural schools where 
English is the sole language. It was only the 
other day that an official of high rank in the 
Department of Education informed me that these 
schools are not as good as they were thirty years 
ago. As evidence of their unsatisfactory condition, 
he stated that in the average county there are each 
year changes of teachers in seventy out of a hundred 
rural school districts. It may well be that search- 
ing investigation^- into the affairs of the English 
rural schools of the province would be — at least 
interesting. 



106 THE CLASH 

Nor is the condition of our city schools entirely 
satisfactory. Many have interpreted the grow- 
ing attendance at schools that are not under 
State direction, as a growing desire for ex- 
clusiveness, whereas, in reality, it is a desire of 
parents that their children "should be taught to 
form tastes," as Goethe expressed it, "rather than 
have knowledge communicated to them." They 
want their children to be educated, not merely 
instructed. The plain truth is that the State 
schools have shown a limited capacity for educa- 
tion; they have entirely failed to do the work in 
character building that is being done by prepara- 
tory schools under private and Church (Protestant 
and Roman Catholic) direction in the Province. 
The State schools of Ontario are probably at their 
best in Toronto, and yet there are thousands of 
parents (Protestant) who find them unacceptable 
streams of education, as is shown by the innumer- 
able private schools in the city. Some day, we may 
conclude, in spite of the present current of opinion, 
that the State can only instruct. It certainly has 
not succeeded in filling the place of the old Scotch 
dominie, who may not have instructed as well, but 
educated better. 

The French-Canadian is not ground to so fine a 
business edge in the Church school as the English- 
Canadian in the State school. But he is taught a 
philosophy of life. We may not all agree with that 
philosophy, but are we mending matters by leav- 
ing the explanation of the whys of life to the pre- 



EDUCATION 107 

carious home training, and to the inadequate one- 
hour-a-week education of the Sunday school? In 
the Church schools everywhere, the object of edu- 
cation is the same : it is the student's realisation of 
his or her place in the scheme of the universe. The 
schools are "flowing streams making glad the city 
of God." The Church has seen no reason to change 
its mind. It continues to reason — in 1918 as in 
1418 — that life here, being only a stage preparatory 
for life hereafter, becomes a period of schooldays. 
Earthly life is not an end in itself ; it is only a means 
to an end. "To-day we are weaving the structure 
we are henceforth to inhabit." Since man has been 
placed on earth that he may make himself ready 
for God's kingdom and acquire a capacity for 
God's righteousness, that then becomes the real 
business of life ; all other things are comparatively 
insignificant. Anyway, treasures accumulated on 
earth will become moth-eaten, corroded by rust, 
or stolen by thieves. Since men cannot count, at 
the most, on more than three score years and ten, 
no day in the week may be safely lost in looking 
after the only thing that is worth while, the 
only thing that is permanent. There is no sharp 
distinction to be made of what is man's and what 
is God's, for all should be — and, in fact, all is — 
God's. I assume thus far this reasoning is that of 
the Protestant and Roman Catholic Churches 
alike. But if so, we are then at the parting of the 
ways, for the Roman Catholic Church carries the 
argument to what seems from the premises a logi- 



108 THE CLASH 

cal conclusion, namely, that the school and the 
Church are inseparable. With that the average 
Protestant does not agree. The Church and the 
school, reasons the Roman Catholic, are, in fact, an 
indivisible institution, designed to conduct the 
human being from infant years, through maturity 
to old age, until consciousness flickers out and 
earthly school-days are over, to "the city of God." 

The State schools of Ontario have never been, as 
in France, anti-religious; nor are they non-re- 
ligious. God is admitted to the school room, but 
only as a "neutral." He is a formal and formless 
visitor. He is not, as in the Church school, re- 
garded as the indispensable spirit of school work. 
But there are signs of change, for philosophers — 
and non-Catholic philosophers at that — are "dis- 
covering," as Mr. Brierly says in "Ourselves and 
the Universe," "that God is not only the source and 
object of the religious feelings, but that He is also 
a musician, an artist, a mathematician, the Creator 
and Giver of all beauty, and that in seeking per- 
fection in these directions we are seeking Him." 
Surely that viev^r is a "discovery" only in a limited 
sense! It is simply a return to the old idea of a 
"flowing stream making glad the city of God." 

We have seen it generally asserted that the 
Protestant mind is superior to the Roman Catholic 
mind in business; and if it be true, then surely 
an explanation lies in the system of Roman 
Catholic education, vv^hich lays so much daily stress 
upon an understanding of things spiritual. While 



EDUCATION 109 

men may go on believing that they can serve both 
God and mammon, it is only common honesty to 
recognise that the direction of the training largely 
determines the direction of the service. Mind you, 
I am not asserting that Roman Catholics under- 
stand spiritual things better than Protestants, but I 
do assert that they devote more time in attempting 
to understand them. There are men v^ho v^ill 
think that the Roman Catholics are laying aside 
the substance for the shadov^, and others who will 
think, having been badly trained in the political 
economy of the material world, Roman Catholics 
are being as badly trained in the science which has 
to do with production, distribution, and consump- 
tion of the wealth of the spiritual world. But into 
that unfathomable question I will not go. 

Probably nothing will illustrate the difference 
between the two nationalities in education better 
than an outline of the ways in which they have 
separately shaped their organisations for its ad- 
ministration. In Ontario, when the Premier of 
the Province is picking his Ministers for roads, 
lands, farms, and finance, he also picks one for 
education — and that is the general practice in the 
other English-speaking provinces. Education is 
regarded as an ordinary subject of government. 
There is no pretence that the people are given an 
opportunity of selecting the ablest man to direct 
the training of their children. The Premier can- 
not be blamed if he does not select the ablest, 
since his choice is limited to one of the sixty or 



no THE CLASH 

more men who have been returned as his support- 
ers. The Province has varied interests, agricul- 
tural and industrial, which ought to be protected 
in the schools; and yet it is not by the combined 
voice of those interests that the choice is made. 
The Province, as a whole, has no voice in the 
matter. The member who, as Minister, has charge 
of the educational affairs of the Province, may 
represent a city constituency and have no knowl- 
edge of rural needs; or he may represent a rural 
constituency and be equally ignorant of city needs. 
Of course, the Province may resent the Premier's 
choice and punish the Government at the next 
election — that is the safetly-valve of our consti- 
tution — but in doing so it has to punish a Govern- 
ment which may have done very good work in 
other directions. As in all games of hazard, there 
is a chance of success. Now and then it may hap- 
pen that a constituency has sent to the Legislature 
a man who happens to have the qualifications and 
happens to have supported the platform of the 
Prime Minister. But if such things do not hap- 
pen, then great harm is inevitable. If there be no 
member with qualifications supporting the Gov- 
ernment, then a member without qualification has 
to be picked, for a Minister of Education we must 
have. In each of the nine provinces a lawyer with 
papers duly signed and sealed must be (Attorney 
General) Minister of Laws. But it is not regarded 
as essential that the man who presides over educa- 
tion be an educationist, and sometimes not consid- 



EDUCATION 111 

ered necessary that he be educated. If the unquali- 
fied Minister happens to realise his lack of qualifi- 
cation and leans upon the bureaucracy which pre- 
sides over the education of the province, we are in 
the practical position of having no Minister. That 
is unfortunate. Still it would have been more 
unfortunate if, not realising his lack of qualifica- 
tion, he had attempted to administer the technical 
side of the schools. Realising his limitations or not, 
the Minister is always at hand when party politics 
are involved; and, having a Minister, party politics 
are frequently involved. That is wholly unfortu- 
nate. 

In Quebec there is no Minister of education. 
Education is removed from party politics. The 
Minister's place is taken by two committees, one a 
Roman Catholic committee, consisting of 36 mem- 
bers, and the other a Protestant committee, con- 
sisting of 22 members. Each committee contains 
representatives of clergy and laity. Each commit- 
tee has home-rule over the affairs of its own side 
of the house. The committees bear the same rela- 
tion to the bureaucracy that the Minister bears to 
the bureaucracy in the other provinces. Their 
regulations must be approved by Orders-in-Coun- 
cil, but approval is a matter of course. The poli- 
ticians stand aside; the Government simply lends it 
machinery to carry out the wishes of the commit- 
tees. Obviously the committees are the real fac- 
tor, and the Government which names their mem- 
bers takes pride in appointing the most distin- 



112 THE CLASH 

guishcd educationists and public men within 
Quebec. But there is many a slip between theory 
and practice in government. Here, however, if 
we may judge from the names on the Protestant 
committee, the deed is as good as the theory. The 
following are members of the committee : Sir Wil- 
liam Peterson, K.C.M.G., LL.D., Chairman; 
Prof. A. W. Kneeland, M.A., B.C.L. (Macdonald 
College) ; Rev. A. T. Love, B.A., D.D., Quebec; 
Sir Herbert Ames, K.B., LL.D., M.P.; Gavin J. 
Walker, Lachute; Hon. Sydney Fisher, B.A., 
Knowlton; W. M. Rowat, M.D., Athelstan; Hon. 
Justice McCorkill, D.C.L., LL.D.; Prof. J. A. 
Dale, M.A. (McGill) ; Principal Rev. R. A. Parr 
rock, M.A., D.C.L., Bishop's College, Lennox- 
ville; Howard Murray, Esq., Montreal; R. Bick- 
erdike; W. S. Bullock, M.L.A.; Rt. Rev. Lennox 
Williams, D.D., Bishop of Quebec; Hon. W. G. 
Mitchell; Rev. E. I. Rexford, D.C.L., LL.D.; W. 
L. Shurtleff, K.C., LL.D.; Hon. George Bryson, 
M.L.C.; Chas. McBurney, B.A. (Principal of the 
Academy, Lachute) ; Marcus G. Crombie, Rich- 
mond; Miss I. E. Brittain, M.A. 

These have been appointed for life, with the 
exception of a member who is elected annually by 
the teachers. They are what "unprogressive" 
Quebec has in place of a political Minister of Edu- 
cation ; no, they are only half of it, for there is an- 
other body of distinguished clergymen, education- 
ists, and public men which presides over the Catho- 
lic schools. The committees do not change with 



EDUCATION 113 

the Government. They do not change by reason of 
the Government's malfeasance or misfeasance in 
crown lands or in road-building. Governments 
may come and governments may go ; but the train- 
ing of children remains in the hands of men 
selected by reason of their academic standing and 
their aptitude for educational administration. 
Recognising the existence of difference, there has 
ceased to be dissension. There are no cross-cur- 
rents. There are narrow men in Quebec who 
delight to throw mud in the other stream, who try 
to dam it with barriers, but they are measured at 
their true value. There is criticism; but in 
Quebec the Catholic (generally) reserves his 
criticism for the Catholic schools, and the Pro- 
testant (generally) for the Protestant schools. 
Both Protestants and Roman Catholics are in free 
possession of "flowing streams making glad the 
city of God." 

Since education has come down to the common 
schools from the universities, we may well go to 
them in our further quest for the difference in the 
educational turn of the two national minds. I 
have no desire to undertake an analysis of what is 
taught at the Universities of Toronfo and Laval; 
there is something more conclusive in what has 
been learned there. Upon twenty years of intimate 
acquaintance with the college men of both nation- 
alities, I venture to assert that the French-Cana- 
dian is generally better versed in the Classics. He 
is not only more familiar with Plato, Aristotle, 



114 THE CLASH 

Cicero, and the rest of the men who have inflicted 
pains upon youth, but has more often retained the 
ability to express himself in Greek and Latin prose, 
especially in Latin. Men may differ as to the 
value of classical training; by many it is now-a- 
days regarded as labour lost; but we must not for- 
get that it was the sort of education that gave to 
England Fox, Pitt, Acton, Gladstone, Balfour and 
many of her best, and the world's best, men. In 
his inaugural address as chancellor of the Uni- 
versity of Bristol, Mr. Haldane, now Lord Hal- 
dane, said : "After a good deal of observation, both 
while I was at the Bar and while I was in charge 
of an administrative department, I have come to 
the conclusion that, as a general rule, the most 
stimulating and useful preparation for the general 
work of the higher Civil Service is a literary train- 
ing, and that of this a classical education is, for 
most men, the best form, though not exclusively so." 
Lord Haldane's opinion will carry weight with all 
who are not wholly immersed in materialism. 

We may call the classical course old-fashioned, 
if we will, and in truth, as we have seen from Peter 
of Blois, it is the oldest-fashioned way of educa- 
tion. "No doubt men vary," continues Lord Hal- 
dane, "and science or modern literature may de- 
velop the mind, in the case of those who have apti- 
tude for them, better than Latin or Greek litera- 
ture." But a knowledge of the dead languages is, by 
no means, the French-Canadian's sole claim to edu- 
cation. He has had also the better instruction in the 



EDUCATION 115 

living languages, or perhaps — more correctly — 
has been more successful in acquiring a knowledge 
of them. The reader may think I have been 
fortunate in the French-Canadians I know, and 
unfortunate in the English-Canadians I know; but 
I am the more confident in my conclusion, since it 
is corroborated by others who know the two nation- 
alities equally well. The English-Canadian may 
have passed through the Collegiate Institute and 
through the State University, but only now and 
then is he able to use French in general conversa- 
tion ; rarely has he more than a laboured acquaint- 
ance with the French classics, and seldom is he able 
to keep abreast with current French thought. 

Is it not probable that the French-Canadian's 
advantage in moderns is derived from his advan- 
tage in classics? That so far from being lost 
labour, knowledge of the classics is indispensable 
to knowledge of English? We sometimes won- 
der at the nicety with which the French-Canadian 
picks his way in the English language. Even his 
apparent mistakes are often found to have a found- 
ation in etymology. We have been attributing 
his success in languages — with our usual careless- 
ness — to race aptitude, but it is in reality due to 
careful work already done in the ground from 
which the material has been taken for the Eng- 
lish language. We may persist — if we will — in 
speaking of ourselves as of the Anglo-Saxon race, 
but we can continue to talk of an Anglo-Saxon lan- 
guage only by defying the opinion of the masters 



116 THE CLASH 

of English. For three hundred years there was bi- 
lingualism in Great Britain. For those who 
will persist in believing that the French of French 
Canada is impure : it was mainly a Norman-French 
dialect that lived side by side with Anglo-Saxon 
and became fused into what is now our national 
tongue. In truth we owe much to the ancestors of 
these French-Canadians and — let us not forget — 
to their priests as well. For from the latter we ob- 
tained the Latin words which make up "the bulk 
of our literary language." The machinery — the 
inflexions, numerals, pronouns, prepositions and- 
conjunctions — is Anglo-Saxon; the words are 
mainly Latin and French ; and the spirit, the thing 
which gives it life, is from Continental parts 
that paid cultural tribute to Rome. Consider the 
following passage from "the much admired open- 
ing of Piers Plowman," which Sir Arthur Quiller- 
Couch, Professor of English Literature at Cam- 
bridge, considers the very best of Anglo-Saxon : 

"Bote in a Mayes Morwnynge — on Malverne hulles 

Me bi-fel a ferly — a Feyrie me thouhte; 

I was weori of wandringe — and wente me to reste 

Under a brod banke — bi a Bourne syde, 

And as I lay and leonede — and lokede on the watres, 

I slumberde in a slepynge — hit sownede so murie." 

"That is good, solid stufif, no doubt: but tame, 
inert, if not actually lifeless," comments Sir 
Arthur. "As M. Jusserand says of Anglo-Saxon 
poetry in general, it is like the river Saone — one 
doubts which way it flows. How tame in compari- 
son with this, for example: — 



EDUCATION 117 

"In somer, when the shawes be sheyne, 

And leves be large and long, 
Hit is full mery in feyre foreste 

To here the foulys song: 

To se the dere draw to the dale 

And leve the hilles hee, 
And shadow hem in the leves grene 

Under the grene-wode tre. 

Hit befel on Whitsontide, 

Erly in a May momyng, 
The Son up feyre can shyne, 

And the briddis mery can syng. 

'This is a mery mornyng,' said litell John, 

'Be Hym that dyed on tre; 
A more mery man than I am one 

Lyves not in Cristiante. 

Tluck up thi hert, my dere mayster,' 

Ivitull John can sey, 
*And thynk hit is a full fayre tyme 

In a mornyng of May.' " 

"There is no doubting which way that flows I" 
continues Sir Arthur. "And this vivacity, this new 
beat of the heart of poetry, is common to Chaucer 
and the humblest ballad-maker; it pulses through 
any book of lyrics printed yesterday, and it came 
straight to us out of Provence, the Roman Prov- 
ince. It was the Provencal Troubadour who, like 
the Prince in the fairy tale, broke through the 
hedge of briers and kissed Beauty awake again." 

The French-Canadians, Nordics like most of us 
(for U we persist in our claim of descent from 
Northmen, we cannot refuse to accept the French- 



118 THE CLASH 

Canadians as first cousins), have been brought up 
at the source; they may become entangled in the 
complicated Anglo-Saxon machinery, but they 
commence the study of the English language with 
an enviable knowledge of the whys of English 
words. It is an old proverb that says: "He who 
knows only one language knows none." It is a 
rare old bull in its way, but has lived many years 
by virtue of its intrinsic worth. 

The neglect of any State to train its high school 
students in the use of the "accepted neutral 
language of all nations," is bad enough; but 
the neglect of English Canada is indefensible. It 
is explainable only on the theory that, having im- 
ported our scheme of education from the United 
States, along with our shaving soap and talcum 
powder, we have neglected to adapt it to conditions 
which are peculiar to this country. Nothing has 
contributed more to our national misunderstand- 
ings than the English-Canadians' plain disposition 
not to understand the French tongue; it has been 
accepted (and not unnaturally) as a disposition not 
to understand the French-Canadian. The man who 
tries to understand us and fails, we can forgive — 
even if we be in violent disagreement; but the man 
who ignores us is hardly to be forgiven. There 
are Cabinet Ministers responsible for the admini- 
stration of the affairs of all the people, who cannot 
understand the language that for three hundred 
years has had a fixed place in the country, and that 
is now the native tongue of three- tenths of the 



EDUCATION 119 

people. There are men high in the Civil Service 
— the public's service — who can neither read nor 
v^rite the language spoken and w^ritten by three- 
tenths of the public. They are not our excep- 
tionally ignorant English-Canadians; they are our 
exceptionally well-educated. Several of them are 
outstanding products of Provincial colleges and 
universities. There are, as a matter of fact, few 
English-Canadians in public life — and I include 
newspaper editors — who ever know, except upon 
interpretation, what more than seven-tenths of the 
Canadian people are writing and thinking about. 
On the contrary, there are many French-Canadians 
who follow the workings of the Canadian mind 
as a whole. 

If one object of a school be to prepare men for 
public service, then the State higher school is at 
least a partial failure. If one object in education be 
to make man a more social being, more capable of 
rendering service to his fellows — and particularly 
his countrymen — then the French-Canadian uni- 
versity graduate is educationally the better-built 
man. If the school be essentially a place in which 
youth is given access to learning, the French- 
Canadian Church university has succeeded better, 
since it presents its graduates with keys that will 
turn the locks of the world's two greatest store- 
houses of knowledge. The State universities of 
English Canada pretend to do the same; but one 
of the keys which they present on diploma day 
rarely fits, and there is nothing more useless than 



120 THE CLASH 

a key that won't unlock. The French-Canadian 
makes use of his advantage. He is a good reader. 
As a rule, he does not write enough in English, 
but that is because he believes the English-Cana- 
dian is not interested in his point of view. He has 
ready access to the transactions of all meetings of 
international science, for they are, of course, con- 
ducted solely in French, the world's neutral lan- 
guage. He is able to follow (at least in the sense 
of knowing what they are) the great strides which 
France has made and will continue to make in 
the sciences and arts, while the English-Canadian 
must helplessly await the usually unsatisfactory 
translations. 

There is more of mathematics in these French- 
Canadian universities than the counting of beads; 
more of the classics than the recital of Latin pray- 
ers. At Ottawa, the seat of Federal Government, 
the graduates of the two systems meet upon com- 
mon ground, and comparison is inevitable. The 
French-Canadian is not the man with the inferior 
education. On the floor of Parliament, where in 
an exceptional debate keen analysis and quick wit 
are required, and a knowledge of history and 
philosophy is useful, the French-Canadian, edu- 
cated in the Church school, can hold his own with 
or against the English-Canadian instructed in the 
State school. For all precedents in British law, 
exceeding 400 years in age — and it was, then that 
the corner-stones of our constitution were set — the 
French-Canadian has an obvious advantage since 



EDUCATION 121 

it was not until about the commencement of the 
sixteenth century that the British Parliament ex- 
pressed its laws in English instead of French. 

But as Herr Althofif said of the Germans, "there 
must be a weak point somewhere." And the weak- 
ness of the French-Canadian Church higher school 
lies in the laboratory. The teaching of the Church 
higher school excels in the political, historical, and 
mental sciences; falls down in the "dismals" but, 
curiosuly enough, excels in the "gays." The State 
is generally conceded to have excelled in the ap- 
plied sciences. In short, the Church has done its 
best work in the sciences which are pursued for 
the love of knowledge; the State in the sciences 
that yield financial returns. That was to be 
expected in the light of our knowledge of the dif- 
ference in approach. The State has put the em- 
phasis in its school on the tangible things of the 
outside world; the Church has put the emphasis 
in its school on the intangible things of the inside 
world. The State is instructing us to control 
nature and the Church is educating us to control 
ourselves. 

The Church regards the school as "a stream 
making glad the city of God," and the State re- 
gards the school as an instrument which will con- 
tribute to the material prosperity of the commun- 
ity. Laval has departments of polytechnics, medi- 
cine, dentistry, pharmacy, and agriculture, but it 
is not there its best work is done. There was 
a time when the arts course of University College 

10 



122 THE CLASH 

was the strongest link in the chain of the Uni- 
versity of Toronto; but it is not to-day. At 
McGill, medicine and practical science have al- 
ways had greater prestige than arts. But because 
we prefer apron and overalls to cap and gown 
(forceful reminders of the universal influence of 
the Church in education), we should not regard 
one as a substitute for the other. The best special- 
ists cannot be produced without a sound foundation 
in general knowledge. Perhaps that is why, spe- 
cialising in the applied sciences, we have signally 
failed to make more than two or three outstanding 
contributions to the world's achievements in the 
applied sciences. If there be a something in our 
country's life which prevents our combining the 
two, let us at least amicably agree to leave the 
French-Canadians to pursue the humanities, while 
we follow the practical sciences. Agreeing, we 
will cease to wrangle over the childish question 
as to which is superior. 

There is always danger in generalisation; and 
especially in so controversial a subject as educa- 
tion. I am writing of national differences in edu- 
cation in a general sense only. It must not be 
thought that the French-Canadian despises in- 
struction in the practical things. Within recent 
years emphasis is being placed on the necessity of 
special training for artisans. Quebec led On- 
tario in providing modern facilities for technical 
instruction. I find in the report (1913) of a Royal 
Commission appointed by the Federal Govern- 



EDUCATION 123 

ment to investigate this subject that in 1911 
Montreal had a technical school "which owes its 
foundation to Sir Lomer Gouin," and which "for 
its size, the building and equipment are amongst 
the finest in either America or Europe." The 
Quebec Government, under French-Canadian 
direction, had also established a technical school in 
the City of Quebec, which "is three-fifths of the 
size of the one in Montreal," and "constructed on 
practically the same lines." Ontario was then 
(upon the same authority) only discussing the ad- 
visability of introducing technical instruction on a 
scale equal to its importance, and only in Hamil- 
ton had it a school with anything approaching 
suitable accommodation and equipment. Quebec's 
"progress" in technical education, stirred Ontario 
to action. Toronto now boasts of its excellent 
technical school; but it followed, it did not lead, 
Montreal. 

My friend, the Member of Parliament, whom 
we found maintaining in the last chapter that the 
Protestant mind was superior in business, was 
right only in a qualified sense. The Roman 
Catholic no more neglects business than the Pro- 
testant neglects religion. 



124 THE CLASH 

Books of Reiferencs 

Viscount Haldane, The Conduct of Life. Musson. 
, Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, On the Art of Writing. Put- 
lam. 

J. M. Brierly, Ourselves and the Universe. 

J. W. Headlam and Others, The Unity of Western 
Civilisation. Mil ford. 

Reports of the Royal Commission on Industrial and 
Technical Education. The King's Printer, Ottawa. 

Ernest Weekley, The Romance of Words. Musson 



CHAPTER VIII 

NOT INFERIOR — DIFFERENT 

"The French-Canadians are illiterate," said an 
Ontario high functionary one night when Regula- 
tion 17 was being discussed at the dinner table. 
And illiteracy has been so often charged that it 
cannot be passed by with a mere denial. 

"I have not found them so," I replied. 

"Quebec is the most illiterate province in the 
Dominion," he said. 

"Not according to the census," I answered. 

"That statement has been made by a Member of 
Parliament." 

"A French Member?" I asked. 

"Don't be facetious," he replied. "What are 
the figures, if you know them?" 

We sent to the library for a Canadian Year Book 
and found — to his surprise — that, although On- 
tario has compulsory education, there is an at- 
tendance at school of only 51 per cent, of its boys 
and 52 per cent, of its girls between 5 and 20 years 
of age; and, while Quebec has voluntary educa- 
tion, 50 per cent, of its boys and 51 per cent, of its 
girls, between the same ages, are at school. Evi- 
dently, voluntaryism in Quebec is almost as effica- 
cious as conscription in Ontario — in securing 
school attendance. There are more grown up illiter- 

125 



126 THE CLASH 

ates in Quebec, where only 86 per cent, can read 
and write, than in Ontario, where 92 per cent, can 
read and write. But it is only fair to add, that Que- 
bec stands fourth in literacy, not last, among the 
nine provinces. 

"The French-Canadians of Northern Ontario 
are very stupid," continued my friend, apparently 
not at all abashed that the official statistics failed to 
back up his dogmatic assertion. 

"You have much business with them?" I sug- 
gested. 

"Most of my business is with them," was the 
answer. "Besides, I have lived with them since 
I was a boy, and know what I am talking about 
when I say they are stupid. Their mentality 
is not as good as that of English-Canadians." 

"And in what language do they talk to you?" 

"In bastard English," he replied, in tones of con- 
tempt. "I don't understand French," he added, as 
if submitting evidence of his own superiority. 

I have related this bit of conversation, because it 
illustrates the attitude of mind in which English- 
Canadians frequently approach this much dis- 
cussed question of comparative literacy and intelli- 
gence. Surely there are evidences of megalo- 
mania here. The average English-Canadian of 
Ontario does not understand French and yet pre- 
sumes to judge the quickness and soundness of the 
French-Canadian mind. I make no pretensions to 
superior mentality, but if what I have were put 
through the sieve of the French language, it would 



NOT INFERIOR— DIFFERENT 127 

appear even less than it is ; and, of course, it would 
be even more unfair to judge the mentality of all 
English-Canadians by the spectacle of my unfortu- 
nate results. Yet, in a similar way, we often 
appraise and condemn the mentality of the French- 
Canadian. Strange as it may seem, I have heard 
men of intelligence assert dogmatic opinions of 
French-Canadian character upon no better author- 
ity than a summer's experience with the farmers of 
St. Agathe or Murray Bay. It is significant of the 
whole controversy, that those English-Canadians 
who know French and also know the French - 
Canadians, have for them the highest respect. 

Having heard so much of the "patois" charge, 
and realising my own inability to try it, I was 
pleased when, some years ago, M. Shotland, one 
of the editors of the great Parisian daily, "Le 
Figaro," told me that he was on his way to Mont- 
real for the purpose of studying the French-Cana- 
dian "patois." It required only a suggestion that 
my company would be welcome, to take me along. 

After breakfast, we set out on our task with be- 
coming earnestness, and in the early morning 
visited the docks. The Parisian journalist indus- 
triously questioned the labourers and the stragglers 
that frequent that quarter of the city. At a more 
decent hour we visited the mercantile section of 
Montreal and I introduced the editor to several of 
my French-Canadian business friends. In the af- 
ternoon, we called upon the lawyers and the doc- 



128 THE CLASH 

tors, and spent the evening at '^Le Club Canadien." 
There we met many of the younger professional 
group. As we returned to the hotel, I anxiously 
asked for my friend's opinion of the French, 
spoken in Montreal. "It is good," he replied, 
"excellent. I could have well imagined myself in 
a club at home. It is true your friends have 
not all our latest slang, but their speech is the 
better for that. The professional men, the fin- 
anciers, the business men, have been educated by 
competent teachers, for they have acquired not only 
the grammatical construction, but the accent of 
the language, as spoken to-day in Paris. It is sheer 
nonsense to talk of French-Canadian "patois." The 
labourers speak as do the labourers in the larger 
towns of France, although there are traces here of 
more contact with English. But at home we are 
still borrowing from the English, and they from 
us. Nor in this country is the taking of words all 
on one side. I assume that you do not consider 
your tongue corrupted because it contains such 
words as lacrosse and canoe, plainly taken from 
French Canada." 

Of course, all French-Canadians are no more 
infallible in the use of French than all English- 
Canadians are infallible in the use of English. A 
country in which each word is dropped with its 
proper accent into its precise setting is only the 
Utopian dream of a well-fed school-master. 

Old words and old phrases, old proverbs and old 
constructions, forgotten in France, have lived in 



NOT INFERIOR— DIFFERENT 129 

Canada. But they are no more reprehensible than 
the quaint folk-songs and the quaint villages in 
which they have been preserved. In fact, all three 
have won the admiration of intelligent American 
tourists. These old forms are being collected and 
put into dictionary form, of which M. Adjutor 
Rivard says: "Monument solide, qui prouverait 
aussi que notre langue est un veritable f rangais, ou 
se rencontrent sans doute des archaismes et des 
formes dialectales, mais absolument respectables." 
They are not of modern vagabond creation, these 
archaic and dialectic words and phrases which are 
being collected; they are perfectly respectable 
members of linguistic society. 

Quoting M. Rameau de Saint Pere, Professor 
Rivard writes : "Nos armes portent cette devise : Je 
me souviens. Et cela veut dire, non seulement: *Je 
me souviens de la France, de la grande patrie et de 
sa langue,' mais aussi : 'Je me souviens de la Nor- 
mandie, du Perche et de la Bretagne, de la Pi- 
cardie, du Maine et de I'Anjou, du Poitou, de 
TAunis et de la Saintonge, du Berry, de la Cham- 
pagne et de I'Angoumois. . . . Je me souviens 
des petites patries et de leurs parlers.' 

There are also "corruptions" which have crept 
into the language — words taken from the English 
and sometimes malformations of English — but 
they are the exception, not the rule as some would 
have us believe. French-Canada is being subjected 
to a grilling attack; no respect for the intimate 



130 THE CLASH 

feelings of men and women has spared her ; all her 
faults — and something more — have been laid bare 
to the world. One of two results was inevitable: 
the people, humiliated in their deepest feelings 
would either lose their self-respect and abandon 
that which others held so cheaply; or, humiliated, 
would defy their critics and resolve by achieve- 
ment to vindicate themselves before the world. 
French-Canadians chose the latter course. While 
violation of the law of grammar is not punished by 
the State in Quebec ; it is punished, after the man- 
ner of Judge Lynch, by society. Through the influ- 
ence of "La Societe du Parler frangais au Cana- 
da," men and women who do not assist in the con- 
servation of the purity of language, are regarded as 
unpatriotic, the natural subjects for condemnation. 
This society, formed 16 years ago under the aus- 
pices of Laval, at Quebec, has extended its organ- 
isation wherever French is spoken in Canada and 
the United States. "Sans tenter de proscrire I'usage 
d'aucun autre idiome, reconnaissant au contraire 
que c'est aujourd'hui, et chez nous, une superior- 
ite que de pouvoir parler deux langues, la Societe 
veut entretenir chez les Canadiens f rangais le culte 
du parler maternel, les engager a I'etudier, a le 
perfectionner, a le conserver pur de tout alliage, et 
a le defendre de toute corruption. Elle pretend 
faire par la oeuvre nationale." 

Nowhere is there a stronger public sentiment for 
an undefiled tongue than in French-Canada, and 



NOT INFERIOR— DIFFERENT 131 

English-Canadians may safely leave the guardian- 
ship of the French language in Canada to its 
jealous care. 

While there will always be disputes as to what 
constitutes purity in language, and while changes 
in the mode of life make for changes in vocabulary 
and expression, the French-Canadian, clinging to 
certain old forms, as M. Rameau has said, through 
attachment for the "little mother countries," has 
accepted the modern national language of France 
as a standard. They speak the French of France 
and speak it well. How can it be otherwise? As 
M. Theophile Hudon has said: 

"C'est bien le frangais que nous parlons. Et 
pourquoi pas? 

"Les enfants I'etudient dans les livres frangais, 
dans des auteurs frangais, des grammaires fran- 
gaises, des manuels f rangais, tout comme les Anglo- 
Canadiens etudient I'anglais dans des auteurs 
anglais. 

"Pourquoi les gens etrangers a la langue fran- 
gaise parviennent-ils a maitriser le frangais, tandis 
que nous ne saurions y reussir, bien que la langue 
frangaise soit notre langue maternelle? 

"Nos enfants lisent et comprennent les contes de 
Perrault, les recits de madame de Segur, les fables 
de La Fontaine et tant d'autres qui font les delices 
des enfants de France. Ce serait folie de pre- 
tendre que des enfants lisent des choses qu'ils ne 
comprennent point! 



132 THE CLASH 

"Les jeuns gens se passionnent pour Bossuet et 
Lacordaire; ils savourent la finesse d'e La Bruyere 
et de Veuillot; ils savent par coeur les tirades de 
Racine, de Corneille et de Boileau. 

"Enfin, universites frangaises, colleges classiques 
frangais, ecoles frangaises de toute sorte, couvents 
frangais, journaux quotidiens et hebdomadaires 
f rangais, revues et periodiques f rangais, nous avons 
tout cela; que veut-on de plus?" 

It will be remembered that when M. Viviani, the 
representative of the French Government to the 
United States, addressed the Canadian Parliament 
from the floor of the Commons Chamber at Ot- 
tawa, he complimented the descendants of the 
French settlers of Canada in "having maintained, 
in all its purity and perfection, the French lan- 
guage which is to be heard throughout the whole 
world." Continuously the French of France and 
the English of England have complimented the 
French-Canadians upon their mastery of the two 
great languages. Yet the "patois" charge still 
lingers. But that was to be expected. It is 
another symptom of the disease. "They speak a 
patois," the Flemings said of the Walloons; "they 
speak a garbled tongue," the Germans say of the 
Slavs in Poland; and across the Atlantic, "patois" 
is flung at the French-speaking people in Canada. 
Everyivhere the charge is the same against the 
minor nationality. If these charges were true, 
then, surely, they were only a very good reason to 



NOT INFERIOR— DIFFERENT 133 

have the tongues improved by better education, 
rather than degraded by restricting the hours in 
which they may be taught. 

In recent years the English press of Ontario has 
had far more to say of the impurity of French in 
Canada than of the necessity for purity in English, 
although one would naturally have thought the 
latter their greater and more direct concern. Eng- 
lish-Canadians do not speak English as it is spoken 
in England. They apparently prefer the pro- 
nunciation of the Americans of New York 
State, and both often reproach the English- 
man for affectation in the use of his own 
language. Nor is there uniformity of speech in 
English Canada. There are Canadians, in the 
sections of the country bordering Vermont, that 
speak with that twang we always think of as pe- 
culiar to the "down-east Yankee," well-exemplified 
in the play, "The Old Homestead." Nor are we 
purists in written English. The learned judges of 
Britain's Privy Council, in interpreting the cir- 
cular containing Regulation 17, found that "un- 
fortunately it" (the circular) "is couched in 
obscure language" (English), "and it is not easy 
to ascertain its true effect." Since the circular was 
written by those who preside over Ontario's De- 
partment of Education, and promulgated for the 
better instruction of French-Canadian children in 
English, it may be taken for granted that even a 
grave court sometimes indulges in humour. There 
are many words in general use in England that are 



134 THE CLASH 

seldom spoken or written in Canada or the United 
States, and in North America English words are in 
common use that are practically unknown in Eng- 
land. Nor do Englishmen and Canadians always 
use the same word in the same sense. If we Eng- 
lish-Canadians do not write English that is readily 
understood by Englishmen of England, it may 
be that the emphasis of reform is being put on the 
wrong school. 

In literature the French-Canadians have had a 
struggle, as had the Flemings of Belgium. The 
buyers of their books were not numerous ; and, after 
all, like the cobbler and the farmer, the author 
must pay for his food and clothes. Yet French 
Canada presents a reasonable list of authors. 
Sir John Bourinot has this to say of what the 
French-Canadians have done in the field of letters: 
"Their histories and poems have attracted much 
attention in literary circles in France; and one 
poet, Mr. Louis Frechette, has won the highest 
prize of the French Institute for the best poem of 
the year. In history, we have the names of Gar- 
neau, Ferland, Suite, Tasse, Casgrain; in poetry, 
Cremazie, Chauveau, Frechette, Poisson, Lemay; 
in science, Hamel, LaFlamme, De Foville; besides 
many others famous as savants and litterateurs." 
The French-Canadians have not produced a 
Maeterlinck nor a Conscience — nor have the Eng- 
lish-Canadians. 

The Germans have a wealth in literature with 
which to attract minor nationalities within the 



NOT INFERIOR— DIFFERENT 135 

Empire, and it must be a deep-seated antagonism 
which bids the Slavonic German refuse the Teu- 
tonic heritage in letters. But the prestige of the 
dominating nationality in Canada is not so strong. 
The French-Canadians have no heartaches in re- 
fusing to bask in the glory of English-Canadian 
literature. We have books, written by English- 
men and Scots; but the French-Canadians say 
they are not Canadian; the English classics are 
good, and so are the French. And, we have books 
— tons of them — by American authors. Signifi- 
cantly enough, many of our best books on Canada 
have been written by the Americans of the United 
States. Harvard has done more work and better 
work in Canadian history than Toronto. But 
neither books made in the United Kingdom, nor 
books made in the United States, contain a national 
appeal to the Canadian whose mother-tongue is 
French. National literature can alone make a 
national appeal; and the blunt truth is that our 
own English-Canadian literature is not appealing. 
I might have said, with little exaggeration, we 
have none, and, strangely enough, its absence does 
not seem to cause national concern. In the war 
lies our greatest interest, and yet, so far as I know, 
only one book has been written by an English- 
Canadian on its underlying causes, and that by 
Sir Gilbert Parker, who has become an English- 
man. We are concerned with the cost of living, the 
tariflf, the unrest of labour, technical education, the 
race question, colonisation, and yet may count 



136 THE CLASH 

on our fingers the books that have been written by 
English-Canadians on these subjects and others of 
equal national importance. In England and the 
United States one may buy a score of new books 
each month on current economic and social ques- 
tions, and here not so many in ten years. 

The daily press of French Canada is as good as 
our own; the periodical literature, I must sadly 
confess, probably better. We English-Cana- 
dians prefer stories with the scene set in New 
York rather than in Toronto ; we have little interest 
in Canadian heroes or heroines (when done into 
type) ; we prefer to buy magazines which relate 
the doings and sayings of Roosevelt and Wilson, 
rather than those of Laurier and Borden. Of 
course our preferences are our own business, but 
until we produce a literature worth while, and 
create national heroes that we ourselves respect, we 
shall never draw the French-Canadians from their 
own. 

The Germans have a splendid theatre and a 
national drama with which to attract the minor 
nationalities, and it has had an influence in that 
direction. The play, depicting the landscape of 
the country, the virtues, vices, follies, and humour 
of its people, has always been considered a mighty 
force upon national character. But we English- 
Canadians have no national drama. The best 
we have to offer the minor nationality is that which 
we hire by the week from the United States. 



NOT INFERIOR— DIFFERENT 137 

Theatrically — and truthfully — we are but spokes in 
a wheel hubbed in New York. 

The major nationality in Germany has expressed 
itself in sculpture and painting; how well, we need 
not here discuss. But it is doubtful that the major 
nationality in Canada has done as much in art, in 
proportion to its numbers, as the minor nationality. 
We have not produced an artist who has done bet- 
ter work in the field than Suzor Cote; we have 
not produced a sculptor the superior of Philippe 
Hebert. We have had more artists, but some of 
those we claim as our own are Canadians only by 
adoption. Wyly Grier was born in Australia, 
Bell-Smith was born in England, as were Fred 
Challoner and C. W. Jefiferys. William Brymner 
is a Scot from Greenock. 

Pursuing the comparison from letters and paint- 
ing to music, we at once think of Albani. English- 
Canadians have done better in music than in any 
of the branches of non-material achievement, but 
no Canadian has had so much of the world's musi- 
cal appreciation as Marie Louise Emma Cecile La 
Jeunesse, the French-Canadian Chambly girl, 
known as Albani. Making her appearance at the 
Royal Italian Opera in London, she sang accept- 
ably in America, Russia, Germany, Australia, 
South Africa; in fact, she sang the world over. It 
will be remembered by many that she appeared 
professionally at the funeral services of Queen Vic- 
toria, and, subsequently, at the Guildhall recep- 
tion given to King Edward and Queen Alexandra, 
11 



138 THE CLASH 

and from King Edward received the Order of 
Merit for Art, Science, and Music. There arc 
others of the French-Canadian school of music 
who have obtained more than national recognition. 

To attempt here a detailed comparison of the 
achievements of the two nationalities in music is 
impossible. It may, however, be safely asserted 
that the French-Canadian is fonder of, and has 
greater aptitude for, melody than the English-Ca- 
nadian. It is not everyone who may excel in music, 
but its appreciation is essentially the national pos- 
session of the French-Canadians. They have one of 
the best collections of folk-songs in the world — 
there is nothing more indicative of esprit de corps 
than the song which is peculiarly that of the group. 
As grave seniors and dignified professors gather 
round a piano, and, with emotion, sing the songs of 
their Alma Mater, so does the whole French-Cana- 
dian nationality with emotion — and usually with 
harmony — sing the hymns and ballads of Old and 
New France ; the songs that take the mind back to 
days of the bateaux and the canoes, to running 
waters and moaning pines, to moonlit cariole drives 
over crunching snow, to courting days in log 
cabins, and all the sweet nothings and somethings 
of pioneer life. It is almost sacrilegious to suggest 
that this possession of song should be given up for 
the popular music we English-Canadians import 
from the United States. 

"Has the French-Canadian proved his capacity 
for filling responsible positions under the Crown? 



NOT INFERIOR— DIFFERENT 139 

Read the life of Lafontaine, of Morin, of Cartier, 
of Dorion, of Joly, of Laurier, as to the Dominion; 
and Chauveau, De Boucherville, Marchand and 
Sir Lomer Gouin in the Quebec Legislature; and 
the answer will not be disappointing. In the House 
of Commons, in the Senate, in the Speaker's chair 
of both Houses, in Spencerwood, in the Supreme 
Court, he has taken a place side by side with men 
of the Saxon race, without any evidence of mental 
inequality or inferiority." These are the words of 
the late Sir George W. Ross, the opinion of a man 
who, as Member of Parliament, went "to Ottawa 
with certain preconceptions of the French-Cana- 
dians" which were found, "on wider acquaintance 
and investigation, to be neither complimentary nor 
just. These preconceptions were formed by the 
public press of the early sixties, when public opin- 
ion was agitated over Separate schools and Repre- 
sentation by Population, and when political 
speeches were rounded off by a vehement denuncia- 
tion of priestcraft and French domination." These 
are the opinions of a man, who was not only a mem- 
ber of the Federal House, but was Minister of Edu- 
cation for Ontario, Prime Minister of Ontario, and 
a Leader in the Senate, expressed at the close of 
life, and with a rare intimate knowledge of the 
worth of public service. 

We have previously concluded that, generally 
speaking, the English-Canadian has the greater 
aptitude for trade and finance; is it too much to 
conclude now that, in proportion to numbers — as 



140 THE CLASH 

28 is to 72— the French-Canadians have a greater 
aptitude for the finer arts? Nationalities have 
well-defined natural aptitudes. Are our differ- 
ences in aptitudes, in achievements, only natural? 
and is it, after all, not foolish to say, that because 
one excels in this and the other in that, that one is 
the other's superior? Dr. Sarolea tells us that 
"Civilisation is not based on unity, but on diversity 
and personality, on individuality and originality. 
And if there is one lesson w^hich history preaches 
more emphatically than another, it is this: that 
small nations have, in proportion, contributed in- 
finitely more than great empires to the spiritual 
inheritance of our race. Little Greece counts more 
than Imperial Rome; Weimar counts more than 
Berlin; Bruges and Antwerp and Venice count 
more than the world-wide monarchy of Spain; and 
the dust of the Campo Santo of Florence or Pisa 
is more sacred than a hundred thousand square 
miles of the black soil of the Russian Empire." 

"Why callest thou me good?" might have been 
asked of the things of the world. Each of us will 
answer according to our personal tastes. That 
English-Canadians call trade good, and place a 
high valuation upon the output of factories and 
farms, is undoubtedly true. National progress is 
measured by the country's balance sheet. The 
country is going ahead or behind, not by what is 
being done in literature, music, painting, and 
philosophy, but by what is being done in trade. 
We may be bankrupt in the fine arts, but if our 



NOT INFERIOR— DIFFERENT 141 

trade balance is right, all is well. If we were 
to search for reasons, one would be found in the 
influence of American thought in creating our 
national ideals. Consciously or unconsciously, 
we have accepted the American measuring-stick 
of achievement and the American method of 
securing it. We have been overcome by the 
collective thought of the hundred million people 
who live within the nearby American Republic. 
The Americans of the United States protest that 
they have been getting away from commercial- 
ism; but there was a time, not long ago, when, 
if not their dominant ideal, it was certainly 
their most conspicuously displayed character- 
istic. And the dominant note of our English- 
Canadian life is money-making— or shall we say, 
has been? Until the coming of the war, State 
honours, knighthoods, and titles, were bestowed 
mainly upon those who had succeeded in amassing 
wealth. Since the war the practice has not 
been wholly abandoned. Making money con- 
stituted, in the King's Canadian eyes, success. In 
nothing have the two stock nationalities of the 
country differed more than in this respect. The 
English-Canadians are constantly striving and 
straining for greater economic achievement; while 
French-Canadians look upon economics, not as an 
end in themselves, but merely as a means of sup- 
porting a life that is to be lived. When enough of 
this world's goods have been secured to satisfy the 
physical needs and comforts, the average French- 



142 THE CLASH 

Canadian is ready for the great something else, 
Life; and the English-Canadian, with appetite 
whetted, is usually only ready for more goods that 
can be weighed or measured and sold. 

We English-Canadians and English-Ameri- 
cans are fairly open to the charge of having mis- 
taken the means of preserving and sustaining life 
for Life itself. The French-Canadians, as a peo- 
ple, do not go as far as we towards economic 
development simply because they feel they can live 
very well without it; they do not regard civilisation 
as consisting of a mere increase in the complication 
of material wants, which can be satisfied only by 
further material production. That is not the end 
for which they maintain a national existence. Que- 
bec has two or three public holidays to Ontario's 
one; and these days, set apart by Church cus- 
tom, are invariably spent in enjoyment. The 
Church in Quebec teaches its people not only how 
to pray, but how to play as well. "They are always 
holidaying in Quebec," groaned a commercial 
traveller from Toronto to me in a French-Cana- 
dian town one day, as with stores and shops locked 
up, he impatiently kicked his heels on the hotel 
verandah. Selling goods and more goods, was his 
main aim in life, was, in fact, his life; and, un- 
fortunately for him, he was in a community where 
buying and selling is only a minor — and, perhaps, 
a regretted — means to the appreciation and enjoy- 
ment of life. 

Depending mainly upon the United States for 



NOT INFERIOR—DIFFERENT 143 

our prose and poetry, music and drama, sports and 
amusements, in short the things that make up na- 
tional life, we English-Canadians maintain that we 
have a nationality that the French-Canadians ought 
to accept; and, with characteristic confidence in 
the value of our own judgment, regulate our school 
laws to make them accept it. It is true there are 
many reasons why we have not held on to cricket, 
have not been satisfied with lacrosse, and have 
given up both for baseball; or, in other words, 
have not retained the national spirit of the British 
Isles, have not developed a distinctive national 
life of our own, and have borrowed from the 
United States. But we cannot expect explanations 
to satisfy an alien nationality, which has a group 
personality so deeply-seated as that of the French- 
Canadians. With a growing knowledge of human 
nature, we may, some day, be willing to pardon 
them for being slow in giving up that which they 
have so largely created for that which we have so 
largely borrowed — even if we continue to believe 
that what we have is "best." 

Contrast the little, steep-roofed, white houses 
snuggling companionably along the highways and 
waterways of the French settlements, with the stiff, 
red-brick, modern farmhouses so often set apart 
in the hundred-acre lot of the English settlements. 
Men and women from all parts of the United 
States visit Canada — French-Canada, not Eng- 
lish-Canada — to view its villages. They arc old- 
fashioned, but — in spite of current opinion — pco- 



144 THE CLASH 

pie do not admire fashions simply because they are 
old. French-Canadian villages and rural houses 
are "quaint," but above all they are beautiful in 
their quaintness. There is a harmony, a fitting 
of one building into another which speaks a 
community-sense of the beautiful. Nowhere in 
North America has this sense been preserved as 
in French Canada. If we are unwilling, or un- 
able to accept that sense as a part of ourselves, let 
us at least preserve our appreciation of it in others. 

Contrast the three-storeyed, thick-walled, grey- 
stone, business-houses of Montreal, with the white- 
tiled, twelve and twenty-storeyed office buildings 
of Toronto. The French-Canadians are "back- 
ward"; they are usually willing to admit it; but 
what they have is theirs, an unseverable part of 
themselves. The architecture of our farm-houses 
— or, rather, its lack — we have taken from New 
York, Michigan, and nearby States; our busi- 
ness buildings are but feeble imitations of those 
that scrape the sky above Broadway. Where New 
York erects a forty-storey building, Toronto builds 
one half as high — and boasts of its performance. 

The buildings which house the representatives 
who make the laws for Ontario and adminis- 
ter the affairs of the Province, were designed, not 
by Canadians, not by Englishmen, but by Ameri- 
cans of the United States ; a significant fact when 
we remember the philosopher's conclusion that the 
soul of a people is expressed in its architecture. 



NOT INFERIOR— DIFFERENT 145 

Books of Reference 
Canada Year Book. King's Printer. 
Charles Sarolea, The Anglo-German Problem. Nelson 
_ George W. Ross, Getting into Parliament and After 
Briggs. ' • 

Sir John Bourinot, Canada. T. Fisher Unwin. 



CHAPTER IX 



THE SEAT OF TROUBLE 



Lurking somewhere there is usually an eco- 
nomic motive which leads one nationality to attack 
another and invariably the possession of land is 
involved. The clash in Ontario is not an excep- 
tion. In Europe, lived in for centuries, the lands 
have become crowded and the conflict of nation- 
alities has meant dispossession; but in Ontario the 
conflict is mainly over land occupied only by the 
animals of the wild forest. Map in hand, the 
reader will find a vast area of land lying north of 
the waters of the Ottawa, north of Lake Nipissing 
and the Great Lakes. Not all of it is capable of 
production, but there are within this Hinterland 
sixteen million acres of soil which, by knowing 
industry, may be turned into farms. Here lies the 
main seat of controversy between French and 
English in Canada. 

The reader may picture a race for the posses- 
sion of this great prize. For great it is. To 
use the Government's own words : "The great clay 
belt running from the Quebec boundary west 
through Nipissing and Algoma Districts and into 
the District of Thunder Bay comprises an area of 
at least 24,500 square miles, or 15,680,000 acres, 
nearly all of which is well-adapted for cultivation. 

146 



THE SEAT OF TROUBLE 147 

This almost unbroken stretch of good fanning 
land is nearly three-quarters as great in extent as 
the whole settled portion of the Province south of 
Lake Nipissing and the French and Mattawan 
Rivers. It is larger than the States of Massachu- 
setts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Jersey, and 
Delaware combined, and one-half the size of the 
State of New York." Further, it lies within a little 
more than twenty-four hours' run of tide water. A 
prize it is; but there is no race for its possession. 
Although the sixteen million acres within what is 
named New Ontario have been there since the 
province was formed — and thousands of years be- 
fore — it was only in 1900 that the Province had this 
territory surveyed and its resources partially 
examined. That was eighteen years ago, and it 
is still "New Ontario," in the sense that it is not 
farm-worn. When the surveyers' reports became 
public, Ontario marvelled at the size of its Clay 
Belt, publicly discussed its potential wealth, voted 
money for its development — in fact, did everything 
but colonise it. Not that the importance of settle- 
ment was wholly unrealised! The man on the 
street knows that Canada's wealth is drawn mainly 
from Canada's land. He has been told that Can- 
ada must pay her huge foreign obligations mainly 
out of the proceeds from farm products. But, in 
spite of that knowledge, it is doubtful if the aver- 
age citizen fully realises that Canada's national 
expansion depends upon the development of its 



148 THE CLASH 

timber, mineral, and agricultural wealth — and 
mainly upon agriculture. 

Admitting the importance of agricultural ex- 
pansion, why does Northern Ontario still remain 
uncultivated and unproductive? English-Cana- 
dians have lost their love for the land. That is the 
plain answer. By the census returns of 1911 On- 
tario's rural population was shown to have de- 
clined by 52,184 in the ten years under review. In 
these ten years, French-Canadians had come into 
the Province from Quebec and settled on the land ; 
Englishmen from England had become Ontario 
farmers, as had Americans and Europeans ; and, in 
spite of these accessions, there was a decline rather 
than an increase in the number of Ontario people 
classed as rural. Very apparently some one 
made way for these newcomers, and that some one 
was the English-Canadian. There is no mystery 
about where he went, and no mystery about the 
cause of his going. The same ten years showed an 
increase of 400 thousand in Ontario's urban popula- 
tion. English-Canadians prefer town rather than 
country life: that tells the story. And it has a 
bearing upon the national clash. 

Nor are Ontario English-speaking people alone 
in preferring town life. There is a well-recognised 
tendency of the English-speaking population of all 
North America to settle in cities and towns. Mr. 
Grant finds in it a Nordic race characteristic. In 
"The Passing of the Great Race" he says : "The in- 



THE SEAT OF TROUBLE 149 

crease of urban communities at the expense of the 
countryside is also an important element in the 
fading of the Nordic type, because the energetic 
countryman of this blood is more apt to improve 
his fortunes by moving to the city than the less 
ambitious Mediterranean." And thus, since the 
city will not permanently reproduce itself, the 
"great race is passing." The case is interesting. 
But is Mr. Grant's theory of a race characteristic 
borne out by the facts? It is here necessary to re- 
member again the distinction between race charac- 
teristics and national characteristics. The Dane is 
the purest Nordic of them all, the progenitor of 
the Baltic race, "the real Homo-europeus," and 
Denmark is one country in the world where agri- 
culture has maintained the balance of power. In 
Canada and the United States, the Mediterraneans 
from Italy herd in cities, and when seeking work 
beyond them, seldom look for it on the farm; 
while in Argentina most farm work is done by 
Italian and Spanish labour. 

Much has been written in attempted explana- 
tion of the growth of cities and towns, and the rela- 
tive decline of the rural communities. Doubtless 
several influences are at work. But attentive ears 
will identify the call of the city as the ring of the 
dollar. The response is naturally to the extent of 
the attunement — and the tuning is done by the na- 
tionalities. It does not come from the blood : it is 
not of race. In so far as the school trains for 
aptitude in money-making, in so far as the national 



150 THE CLASH 

ideal is money-making, to that extent will the na- 
tionality seek money where money is to be found 
in amounts that constitute riches. There is a com- 
fortable living to be made on the farm, but that 
was not enough to satisfy the ambition of Dick 
Whittington, nor is it enough to satisfy our na- 
tional longings to-day. 

If we were right in surmising in the chapter on 
Education, that the English-speaking youth are 
being educated off the land, evidence of the at- 
titude of French-speaking Canadians towards the 
land becomes interesting; for the French-Cana- 
dians have been educated in separate and different 
schools. Let us then compare the two national- 
ities in the only way that comparison is statistically 
possible, by comparing agriculture in Ontario with 
agriculture in Quebec. The results will not be 
exact, but near enough to form some interesting 
conclusions. 

John Pratt of Ontario and Jean Pratte of Que- 
bec, commence their spring plowing at practically 
the same time, cultivate their land, sow their seed, 
and harvest their crops, in much the same way ; and 
from spring to autumn both minds run the same 
course of anxieties and hopes. 

John Pratt is farming 98 acres in Ontario, valued 
at $52.59 per acre; while Jean Pratte is farming 
97 acres in Quebec, valued at $52.13 per acre. 
Their holdings and values are strikingly alike. 
Pratt beats Pratte in making more cheese, and as 
if to return the compliment Pratte beats Pratt in 



THE SEAT OF TROUBLE 151 

making more butter. Neither Pratt nor Pratte is 
a grain grower of renown, and produces field crops 
mainly to turn them into animals and animal 
products ; they are, in fact, factory farmers. Pratt 
excels as a cropper of grains, in 1916 having 16.25 
bushels of spring wheat to Pratte's 15 ; having 25.50 
bushels of oats to Pratte's 22.75 ; and about in these 
proportions did they run the cereal list, Pratte 
growing no fall wheat of account and having the 
advantage only in buckwheat. But when we look 
at the potato yields the honors are reversed, for 
while Pratt was digging 61 bushels from the acre 
in 1916, Pratte took 131 bushels, and both were 
disappointed, for in the previous year Pratt had 
92.66 bushels and Pratte 149.66 bushels to the acre. 
They are both good cattle men; and, while Pratt 
has imported more pure-bred animals, Pratte has 
developed a strong, serviceable cow of his own — 
he is generally original — and it has been set down 
in the official live-stock registry as "Canadian." 
Only the names are of my own creation ; the figures 
are from the records of the Census Department of 
the Dominion Government. 

So far there is not much difference between the 
Ontario man on the land and the Quebec man on 
the land, but there is a difference, and a real one ; 
for the Ontario man takes more from the soil than 
does the Quebec man. To what extent the English- 
Canadian's income is greater cannot be determined 
with mathematical accuracy. Estimates have been 



152 THE CLASH 

made and freely circulated, but since they are gen- 
erally arrived at by adding the values of the field 
products to the values of the several animal pro- 
ducts, regardless of the fact that the hay, roots, 
and some of the grain, went into the cows that pro- 
duced the milk that was converted into butter or 
cheese that alone yielded a cash revenue, they are 
worthless. Accurate accounts are not kept on either 
Ontario or Quebec farms, and from personal ex- 
perience, I can testify that farm book-keeping is 
not, in practice, as simple as it appears in theory. 
It is only from the study of all the basic figures 
that we conclude that the Quebec farmer derives 
a smaller gross revenue than the Ontario farmer. 
We have habitually made comparisons by plac- 
ing the totals of the various agricultural products 
of the two provinces side by side, an obviously in- 
correct procedure, since Ontario has the greater 
arable acreage, having in 1911 "under improve- 
ment" nearly 13^ million acres as against Que- 
bec's 8 million acres "under improvement." Bear- 
ing these acreage figures in mind, the progress of 
live-stock in the two provinces, as revealed by the 
annual census returns, becomes significant. 

Quebec: 1912 1917 Gain or Loss 

Horses 367,402 379,276 + 11,874 

Milch Cows 755,770 911,023 + 115,253 

Other Cattle 695,906 958,010 -f 262,104 

Sheep 620,881 849,148 -f 228,267 

Swine 747,254 712,087 - 35,167 



THE SEAT OF TROUBLE 153 

Ontario: 1912 1917 Gain or Loss 

Horses 805,271 887,246 + 81,975 

Milch Cows 1,033,392 1,082,119 + 48,727 

Other Cattle 1,380,890 865,847 — 515,043 

Sheep 677,462 595,477 - 81,985 

Swine 1,693,594 1,236,064 - 457.530 

From these figures Quebec is more than holding 
its own, while Ontario, the "progressive" province, 
with room for almost indefinite expansion, is going 
behind. That is one lesson, and the other is that, 
bearing in mind the size of the occupied lands — 
about as 8 is to 13 — the average farmer in each 
province owns approximately the same number of 
animals. 

A part of the Ontario man's greater revenue 
goes for hired labour, and a part as poor pay- 
ment for a back bent over Ontario soil from 
sunrise until late at night, payment for working 
on the holidays which the French-Canadian en- 
joys and which are necessary to men engaged in 
every kind of labour. The Ontario farmer has for 
years been working under the light of the red 
lantern that signals danger. 

In Quebec, although the farmer does not obtain 
as much from the soil, the rural population of that 
province increased 39,951 during the ten years that 
the rural population of Ontario decreased by 52 
thousand. These figures are significant. Their 
significance is increased by the knowledge that 
in Ontario 82 per cent, of the farmers own their 



12 



154 THE CLASH 

own places and in Quebec 92 per cent, of the 
farmers own the farms upon which they live. 

If we had as much faith as some in ethnological 
race characteristics, we might have seen in in- 
heritance an explanation for the French-Cana- 
dian's loyalty to the land. When the cat turns 
round and round before settling down for a nap, 
we are told she is following an instinct inherited 
from a tiger ancestor who thus packed the jungle 
grass into a sleeping bed. With a little imagina- 
tion, we could think back to early days in French 
Canada, when the farmer was forbidden the 
pleasures of town under penalties almost as severe 
as those then imposed in England for sheep- 
stealing. But possibly the mental impression 
created by the edicts of M. Bigot and other In- 
tcndents of the Old Regime, is too young to have 
displayed itself in the present generation. 

Under conditions of economic freedom, a man 
stays at uncongenial work only until he can find 
something more to his liking. Working, as 
he does, from morning until late at night, the 
Eastern English-Canadian farmer cannot acquire 
more than a labourer's wages for himself and 
family, and less than the current industrial rate of 
interest on his investment. And he works fourteen 
hours a day against the city man's eight. In normal 
times most things that the Canadian farmer buys 
arc bought at one of the world's dearest retail 
prices and most of the things he sells are sold for 
less than the world's wholesale prices, — a cramped 



THE SEAT OF TROUBLE 155 

course within which to acquire riches. But the 
English-Canadian farmer has imbibed the national 
idea of getting rich. What more reasonable than 
he should conclude that the thing of his heart's 
desire is not obtainable on the farm? 

If the authorities who plan Ontario's policy of 
education have seen the danger, they have not 
wholly protected against it by adding "garden 
plots" and a smattering of agricultural instruction 
to the curriculum of the rural schools. These 
things are good, but they do not reach the vital 
spot, nor do the learned treatises of the press on 
"How to Keep the Boy on the Farm." Produc- 
tion and more production is the English-Canadian 
slogan, and it is made to apply to farm as well as 
factory. Contentment is no longer a virtue; it is 
almost, if not quite, a vice. The French-Canadian 
farmer, who is not inclined to exert himself to the 
breaking point, is considered "unprogressive." But 
significantly enough, taking less from an acre of 
land, leaving it oftener during the year for rest 
and enjoyment, he is less ready to desert it for 
something else; while the English-Canadian 
farmer, with his children, anxious to fall in line 
with "progress," drops the hoe, slams the barn- 
door, and treks for the city, where "progress" is 
conducted with shorter hours and less distressing 
physical fatigue. 

Of course, we should not carry our reasoning too 
far. Only in a general sense are the English-Cana- 
dians leaving the land, and only in the same gen- 



156 THE CLASH 

eral sense are the French-Canadians staying on it. 
We have seen the extent of Ontario's decline and 
Quebec's increase in rural population in the ten 
years covered by the last census, and we have found 
that these figures tell only a part of the story. 
There were also English-Canadians who left Que- 
bec farms for the city. Their places were taken 
mainly by French-Canadians, so that the French- 
Canadians' net gain of land in Quebec was prob- 
ably greater in proportion than the gain of the 
Province in rural population. That movement has 
been represented in Ontario as inspired by clerical 
direction, as in fact it is to this extent, that the 
Church schools have preached the gospel of con- 
tentment on the land. There is no evidence, as is so 
frequently represented, that it has been a vulgar 
intrigue for Church prestige. The change in own- 
ership of the farms of the Eastern Townships is 
fully accounted for by the well-marked inclination 
of the English-Canadians, in Quebec, as in On- 
tario, to seek their ideal in industrialism; as a mat- 
ter of fact, they have had in French-Canadian 
money a welcome consideration for their farms. 

The man who is surveying conditions in Canada 
from a distance, may have found, as yet, little 
cause in these national tendencies from which 
trouble could reasonably develop. He may say: 
Surely there should be happiness in Canada; the 
two nationalities have different ideals; let each 
pursue its own course. But if the stranger has come 
to that conclusion, he has not considered the intri- 



THE SEAT OF TROUBLE 157 

cate and conflicting forces of religion, politics, and 
economics, that are inextricably bound up in the 
human life of this country. Before turning to the 
play of these forces upon our national and coloni- 
sation problems, let us again secure our geographi- 
cal bearings by reference to the map, for tradition 
and geography have also had an influence upon the 
issues. 

The reader will see that the Ottawa River 
stretches from the centre of French population 
near Montreal, north-westerly back into the Hint- 
erland of Ontario. The French-Canadians have 
traditionally followed rivers; flowing water has 
had a strange fascination for them, possibly a race- 
instinct carried over from the days when river and 
lake were roadway and railway combined. The 
Ottawa is not a new route to them. Their fore- 
fathers put it on the maps of civilisation and, with 
pardonable pride, called it, "Le Grand." Their 
missionaries paddled to its sources and portaged 
the divide — and many of them never came back. 
It was the favourite route for the commerce and 
exploits of the coureurs-des-bois, who are to the 
world the most attractive figures in Canadian his- 
tory. Nor is the country north of the Ottawa and 
the Great Lakes new territory to the French-Cana- 
dians. Pierre La Verendrye and his associates 
travelled it many times, and its lakes and rivers still 
retain French names. 

The Hinterland of Ontario is wooded, and the 
French-Canadian is America's best axeman. The 



158 THE CLASH 

Americans of the United States by many thousands, 
have taken up the land of Canada's treeless 
Western plains, but Ontario's arable lands, cov- 
ered by woods, they have left severely alone. The 
French-Canadian is at home in the woods and can 
protect himself there; the Swedes and Norwe- 
gians are his only competitors. The Hinterland's* 
acres of clay-loam have a capacity for mixed farm- 
ing; and the French-Canadians are no mean 
adepts at that sort of agriculture. Having well oc- 
cupied the Province of Quebec, they are mak- 
ing their way up the Ottawa River to the land 
which the English-Canadians have allowed to 
remain a wilderness. 

Even now the stranger, unacquainted with con- 
ditions, may see no signs of trouble. He may even 
reason that, since English-Canadians generally pre- 
fer to live in cities, they ought to be pleased to have 
a people, capable of clearing the land and willing 
to brave the perils of forest fires, move into this 
vast unsettled hinterland; such settlement is for 
the good of Ontario, the good of Canada, the Em- 
pire, and the hungry world generally. 

But if the French settle Northern Ontario, ob- 
stinately refusing to learn English, the trade of 
Northern Ontario will go to Montreal and the 
industrial cities of Quebec, complained the Eng- 
lish-Canadian merchants of Ontario who refused 
to learn French. Here was an economic motive 
for attack which, swaying important business 
interests, attracted the politicians who were already 



THE SEAT OF TROUBLE 1S9 

sounding the keys of religious and rac€ prejudice. 
Here was an ideal pool (to change the meta- 
phor) for the politicians, a mixture of nationality 
and economics, which, properly whipped, might 
return eleven English-Canadian rotes to one 
French-Canadian vote — a clear majority of ten, 
multiplied by thousands. But there was this diffi- 
culty : the pool was no party^s presenre. The 
majority fish — and in that alone the politi- 
cians were interested — ^would go to the party 
which whipped the pool with the greatest good- 
will and skill. Both Liberals and Conservatives 
were scrupulously willing; and each, led by 
its press, proceeded to outdo the other. Scarcely a 
day passed without a leader in the English press 
of the Province seeking to persuade English read- 
ers that the land of Northern Ontario must not be 
settled by a French-speaking population. Signi- 
ficantly enough, the press did not devote as much 
space to urging that it ought to be settled by Eng- 
lish-Canadians. 

It is W. E. H. Lecky who tells us, in "The Map 
of Life," that no one "can study the anonymous 
press without perceiving how large a part of it is 
employed systematically, persistently and deliber- 
ately in fostering class, or race, or international 
hatreds, and often in circulating falsehoods to 
attain this end. Many newspapers notoriously de- 
pend for their existence on such appeals, and more 
than any other instruments, they inflame and per- 
petuate those permanent animosities which most 



160 THE CLASH 

endanger the peace of mankind.'* "Systematic- 
ally," "persistently" and "deliberately" have On- 
tario's newspapers inflamed men of the English 
tongue and the Protestant religion against French 
Catholic settlement in New Ontario. 

Since the days of Guy Fawkes, Englishmen have 
been a bit nervous of plots, and especially those 
with a clerical tinge. If a politician can once ap- 
peal to an English-speaking Protestant constitu- 
ency with an apparently full-fledged clerical plot 
in his possession, he may safely order his wife's 
gown for the opening ceremony of Parliament. 
No one better than Sir John Willison — at the time 
editor of the "News" of Toronto — knew the politi- 
cal value of a clerical plot in Ontario, and in 1916 
he proceeded to develop one for his readers. Writ- 
ing editorially of the priests of French Canada, he 
said : "The dream of reconquest and of ascendancy 
they have never abandoned. They have made race 
serve religion, and religion serve race. All that 
could be done they have done to preserve the 
French language and to discourage the spread of 
English, no matter what handicaps they may have 
imposed upon their people. They are directing mi- 
gration into Ontario and the Western Provinces." 

Bacon reminded us that "There is nothing makes 
a man suspect much, more than to know little." 
Sir John had said little but had said enough. The 
French-Catholic clergy were directing French- 
Catholics to New Ontario and the West. What 



THE SEAT OF TROUBLE 161 

visions of intrigue for ascendancy were suggested 
to imaginative minds? 

Now let us have the facts of the part taken by 
the French-Canadian priests in the "colonisation 
of Ontario and the Western Provinces." The sub- 
ject deserves more than passing attention, since 
whole nations are frequently impelled to action 
through suspicion. It is true there are priests 
organised for the express purpose of directing 
French-Canadians "into Ontario and into the 
Western Provinces." I have on my desk a docu- 
ment which supplies this information. "Voici les 
noms et adresses des missionaires colonizateurs 
s'occupant du rapatriement des Canadiens-Fran- 
gais: Rev. Bouillon, Manitoba; Rev. Bourassa, 
Nouvel Ontario ; Rev. Normandeau, Alberta Cen- 
tre, 172 St. Antoine, Montreal; Rev. Giroux, 
Riviere La Paix, Alta. ; Rev. Caron, Abbitibi, 
Que., 82 St. Antoine St., Montreal." But that is not 
all. There are men stationed in the United States 
whose duty it is to supply expatriated French- 
Canadians with first-hand information of the 
country, and point out the easiest routes by which 
it may be reached. As might have been suspected, 
the names indicate that they are, with one excep- 
tion, of the French nationality. I give the names 
and, to satisfy the incredulous, the addresses: Max. 
A. Bowlby, 73 Tremont St., Boston, Mass.; J. A. 
Laferriere, 1139 Elm St., Manchester, N.H.; J. B. 
Carbonneau, Jr., Biddeford, Me.; J. E. Laforce, 
29 Weybosset St., Providence, R.I. 



162 THE CLASH 

Even that is not all. I have in my possession 
a number of booklets printed in the French 
language, with beautifully coloured maps describ- 
ing the resources of Canada : of "Ontario and the 
Western Provinces," "the Lands of Promise ;" and 
am assured that these books have been circulated 
by the thousands in the Province of Quebec, and in 
the Eastern States which have French-speaking 
populations. These men of the French-Canadian 
nationality are told of New Ontario : 

"La nouvelle ligne du Grand Tronc-Pacifique, ou plutot 
du Transcontinental National, qui en sera la section 
orientale, traversera la partie nord de cette region, livrant 
a la culture une vaste zone de terre argileuse arable d'une 
etendue de 16,000,000 d'acres. 

"Ce district septentrional couvre une superficie de plus 
de 140,000 millcs carres soit plus de la moitie de la super- 
ficie totale de la province. Une grande partie de cette 
Etendue se compose d'excellents terrains agricoles. La 
colonisation y a deja pris des proportions tres respectables, 
surtout dans les districts de la Riviere-a-la-Pluie, et de 
la Baie du Tonnerre. 

"Cette zone argileuse, offrira un grand attrait pour les 
colons lorsque toutes ses parties seront plus facilement 
accessibles. Son climat, tempere et fortifiant en ete, n'est 
pas rigoureux en hiver, ce qui le rend favorable a I'agri- 
culture. D'autres parties de cette section septentrionale 
sont arables, et le reseau de lacs et de rivieres qui la couv- 
rent constituent des voies accessible faciles. C'est une 
des parties les plus richment boisees du monde." 

The French-Canadian is informed, in the lan- 
guage of France, as to the location of the railway 
facilities, the extent and character of the arable 



THE SEAT OF TROUBLE 163 

land, the nature of the climate and the value of the 
woods and waterways of Northern Ontario; he is 
reminded elsewhere in these French written books 
of the deeds of his ancestors, the exploits of the 
coureurs-des-bois, and the sacrifices of the Catholic 
missionaries in the land called Ontario. Seductive 
appeals are made to the pride of race as a stimulant 
to colonisation. 

Now, if these things constitute a plot, "born of 
the dream of reconquest and ascendancy," it is sig- 
nificant that the blame was not put where it be- 
longed, on the Ottawa Government — not on the 
poor cures — since it was the Department of the In- 
terior which hired the priests, directed their ac- 
tivities and printed the French literature from 
which I have quoted. The book that I hold in my 
hand was "public sous la direction de I'hon. W. J. 
Roche, Ministre de I'Interieur." But will anyone, 
for a moment, believe that a Conservative Govern- 
ment financed — nay, more, counseled and directed 
— the cures in a campaign of "reconquest and of 
ascendancy." 

The Government, in encouraging French-Cana- 
dians to settle the lands of Ontario and Western 
Canada, was but following a policy laid down 
many years ago for the settlement of Canada's idle, 
arable land ; a policy designed to make these lands 
productive. Production, not religion, not nation- 
ality, was -the incentive. There was no plot; there 
was simply a well thought out plan for colonisation. 

I would not be misunderstood on this point. The 



164- THE CLASH 

country's need is settlement as a means toward 
agricultural production; French-Canadian settle- 
ment is an issue simply because the French-Cana- 
dians apparently have alike the willingness and 
ability to make these idle lands productive. The 
French-Canadians are "unprogressive" in the sense 
that they have held on to the old community life 
longer than most peoples. They are the natural 
colonists for this land of woods. When they move 
they take their Church and their school with them. 
They commence life in the new land with the 
anchors of civilisation. Not so the English-Cana- 
dian, who, each for himself, treads a lonely way. 
There are English-Canadian frontiersmen in On- 
tario, several thousand of them that, destitute of 
Church and school, by violation of eugenic laws 
have sunk into indescribable conditions of mental 
and physical degeneracy. Some years ago the "Tor- 
onto News" lifted the lid that prevents these things 
being discussed in public, and after giving the pub- 
lic a glimpse of the deplorable situation, suddenly 
clapped it on again and returned to the attack of 
French-Canadian settlement, which, with separate 
schools, under clerical direction, was apparently 
considered an even greater menace. Why? I can- 
not say. 

The French-Canadian willingness to settle On- 
tario lands has been interpreted — and misinter- 
preted — as a plotting of French-Canadian Catholic 
Clergy; it would be equally good reasoning 
to suggest that the English-Canadians are be- 



THE SEAT OF TROUBLE 165 

ing herded in towns and cities by the plotting 
of Protestant Clergy, an evident absurdity. If 
there be any religion at work in the issue, 
it is only to the extent that the Roman Catholic 
Church has, through its schools and its ser- 
mons, preached the gospel of contentment. No, 
there is something more; for the priests of Quebec 
are teaching their parishioners the doctrine that a 
thing well done on the farm is a thing worth while 
for its own sake. When unknowing men talk of 
priest-ridden Quebec, I think of an order of mis- 
sionaries in the province, who periodically make a 
retreat for meditation and study. And the objects 
of their thought? The care of bees, the best fruits 
to grow on the farm, melon-culture, manuring, the 
breeding of horses, co-operation, dairying in all its 
branches, aviculture, apiculture, horticulture, and, 
in general, all that has to do with agriculture. 
They are "Agricultural Missionaries, organised by 
the Catholic Bishops of the Ecclesiastical Province 
of Quebec in the year 1894." In one year they car- 
ried the gospel of God's land to 145,250 listening 
farmers. They had audiences, and that is, un- 
fortunately, more than can be said of many of our 
Ontario Farmers' Institute meetings; and they 
preached with the fervour of men who carry glad 
tidings. The priests of Quebec have organised the 
rest days, which lighten the labour of the farm, and 
are an active force in holding up the sanity 
of country life. But these things are open to all. 
Neither the French-Canadian nationality nor the 



166 THE CLASH 

Roman Catholic Church has a patent upon these 
common sense doctrines. Others may preach and 
practise them. 

Not many years ago, I visited a farm monastery 
in Quebec. In the fields I found a young monk, 
with bared, sunburnt arms, engaged in the back- 
wearing exercise of thinning and weeding turnips. 
He paused in his work as I came near, wiped the 
dripping sweat from his forehead, straightened 
himself out to a full six feet of manhood, squared 
a pair of broad shoulders and breathed the deep 
breath of a worker in the fields. I recognised in 
him a priest whom I had met at Ottawa some 
months before, and we discussed the usual topics 
cf the farm and the season. "I thought you were a 
religious priest," I said in parting. "I hope I am," 
he replied, "and what a beautiful religion it is," 
said he, looking over the well-tilled field. "So 
strenuous," he added, taking the hoe and bending 
once more to his work. 

Yes, agriculture is a beautiful and strenuous reli- 
gion. Only as a religion, only when loved for 
its own sake, does the land yield its fullest benefits 
to mankind. And English-Canadians have been 
looking upon farming as a mere trade, measuring 
its values by dollars and cents. They have priced 
the farm for what it yielded in money; and, con- 
trasted with the results of city occupations, it has 
fallen short. That is why English-Canadians have 
deserted Old Ontario and refuse to settle New On- 
tario. That is why farms within driving distance 



THE SEAT OF TROUBLE 167 

of Toronto — even at present prices of farm pro- 
ducts — are to be bought for less than the original 
cost of clearing, fencing, and draining the land, and 
erecting the buildings. That is why the farms of 
the Eastern Townships are passing out of English- 
Canadian control. After all, it is a matter of reli- 
gion; but it is the religion of God's land. If 
it is true that Canada's expansion can be no 
greater than the development of Canada's land, it 
may be, that having deserted the farms, we cannot 
permanently maintain ourselves in the city. 

With the restoration of "contentment" to the 
English-Canadian vocabulary, Canada may be- 
come the home of many millions of people who 
regard production simply as a means to a sane, 
healthy development in life. Contentment is not 
necessarily a bar to progress ; slavery to production 
ultimately is. We must learn, in town and country, 
the secret of doing things, simply because doing 
them well is worth while. It may be that the 
French-Canadian ideal, which tempers produc- 
tion by social enjoyment, is indigenous to the coun- 
try; and that the English-Canadian objective of 
getting rich by "following the leader," is not per- 
manently realisable in this country, its seeming 
success this last twenty years having been only a 
flash in the pan. 

If there is to be national rivalry in this Province, 
which was carved out of Quebec and made safe for 
civilisation by French valour, let it be a force 
under new ideals — or rather, returning to our 



168 THE CLASH 

fathers' ideals — for the country's good. Which 
will be first to occupy the Clay Belt, the Old or the 
New Inhabitants? Which will do more to clear 
these lands and convert them into contented farm 
homes, the English-Canadians or the French-Ca- 
nadians ? There is no need for conflict ; the wilder- 
ness is big enough to absorb the surplus energies 
of the two nationalities, wide enough for both Eng- 
lish and French settlements, each developing, 
under its own culture, in mutual toleration. 

No people is entirely master of its own conduct; 
there are obligations to civilisation which all must 
perform. No people may hold vast areas of land 
(the reservoir of food for millions), refuse to cul- 
tivate them, refuse to have them cultivated by 
others (even their countrymen) unless upon pay- 
ment of the supreme penalty of denationalisation. 
No people may do that and shamelessly face the 
scrutiny of civilisation. 

Books op Reference 

Madison Grant, The Passing of the Great Race. 
Scribner. 

The Canada Year Book. King's Printer. 

W. E. H. Lecky, The Map of Life. Longmans. 

Atlas du Canada (1913), King's Printer, Ottawa. 

Dominions Royal Commission Reports. Wyman & 
Sons. 



CHAPTER X 

BENEATH THE SURFACE OF THINGS 

Too often we overlook the fact that Canada's 
problem in nationality is essentially a world-prob- 
lem, and too seldom do we attempt to analyse and 
determine our real national conditions and seek 
guidance in the world's experience. 

Through a political disagreement of our respec- 
tive forefathers, we, the descendants of English and 
French, have been placed side by side on the North 
American Continent. Having got into our present 
apparent difficulties through European politics, it 
may be that we can find a way out of them by a 
study of European politics. It would seem rea- 
sonable that, m a matter of this grave importance, 
we should not rely solely upon our own sporadic 
wisdom. We have established a code of morals 
for the individual upon the teachings that were 
given to the people of Judaea many years ago, and 
we regulate our individual rights and wrongs by a 
system of jurisprudence which, as the name im- 
plies, was borrowed from Rome. What is then 
more natural that equally useful help may be 
obtained by searching abroad for information as to 
the relations which nationalities ought to bear to 
each other and to the State, when they have to live 
together under a common political organisation? 

169 

13 



170 THE CLASH 

But before we go abroad, we ought to make cer- 
tain that we have clear ideas of the several con- 
cepts we take with us. 

Have we a clear common answer to that histori- 
cal question: Who is the State? Who is this 
body that would dispose of nationalities as if 
they were clay and it a potter? A few years ago — 
as years run in the lives of nations — Louis XIV of 
France asked the question, and then promptly re- 
plied "I am the State." But before the age of 
Louis and the kings there was the head of the 
family, before that the chief of the tribe and the 
lord of the manor, but always the idea of the pater 
familias. Kingship only continued the original 
idea. The king was father, the subjects his child- 
ren, more or less his obedient children; like a 
father, he protected the weak from the strong, 
and like a wilful father, he now and then chastised 
both. 

Then came a revolution. There had been 
revolutions before. Often a throne had been up- 
set, but it had always been set up again and sat in 
by a new man, crying in one breath, "Who is the 
State?" and replying in the next, "I am the State." 
If there was not too much of a pause between 
breaths, and if the answer was backed up by 
enough trusty arquebuses, the chances were that 
the answer was accepted. In the new revolution, 
which spread over the greater part of the world, 
reaching even to China a few years ago, and to 
Russia a few months back, there was no resetting 



BENEATH THE SURFACE 171 

of the throne. Democracy said, "I am the State"; 
and said it so sternly that there was no room for 
argument. Incidentally, democracy held the 
arquebuses. 

What is democracy? Every schoolboy knows 
that "democracy is the government of the people, 
by the people, for the people." At least he has 
been told so by those who generalise on political 
conditions. But our open eyes tell us that democ- 
racy can be no more than the government of all 
the people by a majority of the people; and fur- 
ther tell us that, in the Province of Ontario, it has 
been a government— for the majority of the people. 
Now, obviously, where there is a majority, there 
must be a minority; in creating one, the other is 
necessarily created also. And within the means of 
creation is concealed a condition which is pregnant 
with importance to the business of our investiga- 
tion. 

In all democratic countries there are invariably 
two or more groups of men who devote themselves 
to politics. These men we habitually call poli- 
ticians, relieving monotony occasionally by refer- 
ring to them as statesmen. They are the real ten- 
ants of the throne which fell away from kings. 
Their tenancy is obtained from the majority, and 
on certain set moving days they go hunting for 
majorities. The politicians have no use for min- 
orities, because it is not within their power to lease 
the all important throne. There are various ways 
by which a majority may be secured. Sometimes 



172 THE CLASH 

the politicians promise the men engaged in one 
industry a rich living upon the fruits of another 
industry; and thus by the promise of protection, 
factory is not infrequently turned against field. 
In countries which are fortunate — and unfortu- 
nate — enough to have diverse nationalities, the 
politicians often seek to turn one nationality 
against the other, or others, always aiming to pick 
up the nationality with the most noses; for it is 
noses that make up what we call the Sovereign 
People. 

In the old days the politicians, as we have seen, 
hunted for power with arquebuses. That was a 
poor way of determining right and wrong; yet 
it must be remembered that back of the arque- 
bus was a reasoning, average man. In getting away 
from this awkward manner of settling disputes, 
have we more closely approximated an equal 
opportunity for all men to assert their opinions? 
Those who defend democracy, retreating from pil- 
lar to post, assert that it is a spirit in which every 
man has an equal opportunity of arriving at power. 
But is even that true? Powder and shot were 
within reach of the average man, but their modern 
successor, under normal political conditions, is the 
newspaper; and not by the wildest stretch of 
imagination can we say that the influence of the 
newspaper is within reach of the average man. 

The great metropolitan dailies which make and 
unmake majorities, which enthrone and dethrone 
politicians, are worth at least a million each, and 



BENEATH THE SURFACE 173 

are thus only within reach of millionaires — and 
of only a particular group of millionaires. For 
news-gathering is a monopoly shared only by con- 
sent of the men within the combination. Those 
who attempt to establish a newspaper without ac- 
cess to the news-gathering service, are likely to 
succeed no better than imbeciles who, conceivably, 
might try to build brick houses without bricks. 

The Canadian people are dependent upon ten or 
twenty newspapers for their information as to con- 
ditions. If the newspaper's function were to re- 
port conditions as they are, or if the owners of the 
newspapers were superhuman in being all wise 
and free from the prejudices that affect ordinary 
mortals, then the danger of evil would not be so 
great. But neither of these "ifs" are realisable in 
actual practice. It is a well-known fact that the 
reports of events in newspapers and the editorials 
are coloured to suit the aims and opinions of the 
editors, and, in the final analysis, of the proprietors. 
Let me illustrate with a personal experience. I 
once had occasion to make several statements be- 
fore an Ontario public service commission, and 
in reporting what I said, a newspaper, whose 
owner was unfriendly to my position, made me 
say three out of four things in exactly the contrary 
way to which I actually said them. There was no 
chance for disagreement as to what was actually 
said, for T obtained the official stenographic report 
of the proceedings and forwarding it to the editor, 
explained what had been done. I received a sym- 



174 THE CLASH 

pathetic letter in reply. But no correction was 
made of the mis-statements. If the subject, as mis- 
reported, was of importance to the public, surely 
the subject accurately reported was not less im- 
portant. That is only one instance of the many 
which I might give where newspapers within my 
own experience have mis-reported public proceed- 
ings. It is by this means that public opinion has 
been formed on several issues in which newspaper 
proprietors hold identical opinions. The public 
is never given a chance to determine the issues upon 
the facts. 

At a recent meeting in Toronto, Ontario farmers 
bitterly complained that the economic conditions 
of the country are being constantly misrepresented 
by the millionaire proprietors of the city-published 
papers. It may be that the men who own the news- 
papers are protecting a just cause; but, in the opin- 
ion of the farmers, they are protecting it by mis- 
representation. Not long ago, there was a gen- 
eral election in Canada, and in the Province 
of Ontario all the city dailies, except one — and 
that of comparatively small circulation — devoted 
themselves to representing only one side of the 
issue and, some think, to misrepresenting the other. 
Again, it may have been that the newspapers were 
protecting the better cause; but the decision as to 
which was better was left to the small group of 
men who own the papers upon which we are de- 
pendent for our knowledge of events and opinions. 
Heaven help the men who cannot by the press 



BENEATH THE SURFACE 175 

defend themselves and their interests from the 
press ! They are as helpless as the men who, in the 
olden days, now and then vainly tried to protect 
themselves with pitchforks and scythes against the 
attacks of the arquebus-armed troops of the feudal 
barons. The French-Canadians have had the solid 
opposition of the English-speaking press of On- 
tario. The newspaper owners may urge that they 
have presented opinion, on this subject and others, 
which is contrary to their own; and the "Catholic 
Register" might, with equal fairness, maintain that 
it now and then presents Protestant opinion; but 
few there are who will ever by that means become 
aware of the merits of Protestantism. 

There are some who think that the occasional 
agreement of the ten or twenty men that control 
the press of the country is due to the influence of 
money, senatorial appointments, and titles. But an 
explanation may be found without imputing any of 
these things, and, personally, I prefer to accept it. 
Newspaper owners are, after all, as they say in 
fairy tales, "only flesh and blood mortals" com- 
posed of the ordinarily varying parts of wisdom 
and unwisdom, prejudice and unprejudice. It is 
not strange that, like many another group of even 
greater size, they sometimes all support the wrong 
cause; it would indeed be strange if they did not. 

We often indulge in panegyrics of democracy 
and elaborate upon its superiorities over autocracy. 
But the progress towards equality in opportunity 
of asserting opinion is more imaginary than real. 



176 THE CLASH 

The mortal men who own the newspapers that 
colour and disseminate the information that, in 
turn, creates the majority and places the politicians 
on the throne, are our real rulers. Let us recognise 
the fact. That is a substantial something in our 
effort to see things as they are. And let us also not 
forget that newspapers, like farms and stores, 
usually pass from father to son by inheritance. 
Professing democracy, we have completed the cir- 
cle and once more are subject to the control of an 
hereditary autocracy. 

When an election has been fought out on the 
issue of nationality, the dominant nationality be- 
comes the Sovereign People. Under kingship, the 
weaker children had, at least, a figment of protec- 
tion from the stronger; under majority rule, they 
have none. They are, in fact, His Majesty's Loyal 
Opposition. Opposition, it is true, but the use of 
His Majesty's name, is a subterfuge. His Majesty, 
in a democratic country, is a figure-head. We 
may even call him such without danger of losing 
our own heads. We admire and respect him, and 
regard his services as essential to the best interest 
of the State ; but we do not rely upon him to protect 
the weak from the strong, the minority from the 
majority. He may have a moral influence on 
other matters ; but what have morals, under our ac- 
cepted philosophy, to do with this question? and, 
as a result of the stirring of the pools, he is power- 
less. Often the politicians, having reached the 
throne, are themselves powerless to undo their own 
work. 



BENEATH THE SURFACE 177 

Democracy means freedom — for the majority. 
It means more : it means license — for the majority 
— under the Treitschke doctrine identifying right 
with might; it has times again shamefully op- 
pressed minorities. The minority must swallow its 
medicine, and a bitter nostrum it is. For fear 
some may think I have over-stated the case, let me 
quote Dr. Bussel, an Anglican clergyman, who, in 
"The New Government for the British Empire," 
says: "The worst offenders against local freedom, 
the worst oppressors of minorities, have never been 
monarchs — rather those plebeian governments 
which, holding up the idea of royalty to scorn and 
hatred, have in truth modelled on it their powers, 
their policy, and their demeanour." The difference 
between oppression by an autocracy, and oppres- 
sion by a democracy, is thus not that of principle, 
but rather that of a division of spoils. There 
is no more virtue in the injustice of a democracy 
than in the injustice of an autocracy. This we 
must remember, as we seek to trace the relations of 
nationalities to each other and to the State, and 
usually they amount to the same thing. When we 
say the State seeks to establish homogeneity, we 
invariably mean that the men who control the State 
machinery would have all men within the State 
learn their language, accept their ideals, and con- 
form to their way of living. High sounding 
phrases may conceal the intent, but cannot destroy 
the spirit. 

"What is meant by homogeneity?" That is an- 



178 THE CLASH 

other concept about which we should be clear 
minded. The question might not have remained 
in my mind if it had not been asked by a learned 
college professor. Absolute homogeneity, in the 
sense of all men being of the "same composition or 
structure throughout" (my dictionary's definition) 
is plainly unattainable. Possibly one of the first 
serious thoughts that comes to maturing youth is 
the unlikeness of men; the innumerable varieties of 
men. When we stand on the streets of a crowded 
city and watch the thousands and thousands move 
slowly by, no two alike in features, and, reasoning 
from experience, know that no two are alike in 
character, when we realise that we can travel 
America and Europe — Asia and Africa as well 
— and never find anyone just like ourselves, we 
are impressed with the truth of the old proverb 
that it takes all kinds of men to make a world. 
There is a design behind these unlikenesses, for 
they mean strength to the world. Each of us 
brings a contribution, some thought, some act, 
which is peculiarly our own in the sense that it 
emanated from our own distinctive personality; 
small though it may be, it goes to swell the sum 
total of the world's thought assets. 

As we have seen already, men are further divided 
into national groupings, and these again have dis- 
tinctive characteristics, and it is in the sense of 
having all men within the one State of the same 
nationality, of the same group character, that the 



BENEATH THE SURFACE 179 

word homogeneity is used in the subject under dis- 
cussion. To that end, it is contended, all ought 
to speak a common language. 

"Conscious perception," concludes Max Miiller, 
"is impossible without language." This distin- 
guished Anglo-German savant was the dean of 
philologists. "Language is necessary to thought, 
and there can be no thinking without language." 
That may be true, but the converse must not be car- 
ried too far: for many men use much language 
with little thought. Whether or not thought is 
possible without language, language is certainly a 
guiding factor in thought, for it is the key to cul- 
ture. As the philosophers point out, this would 
be the sorry world of many centuries ago, when 
men killed their food with stone hammers and 
knew not of fire with which to cook it, if we were 
to be deprived of the accumulated wisdom of our 
forefathers, if we had no access to the thought of 
the great men of our age, and all ages, and were 
each compelled to rely upon the products of his 
own thinking. No provision would have been 
made for the strong to help the weak. The old 
paths, with their blind ends, would have to be 
travelled over and over again every time a human 
being came into the world. 

Men have done their thinking in groups, and 
have expressed their thoughts and experiences in 
one of nearly three thousand languages, a round 
dozen of which have attained the eminence of cul- 
ture. These languages are so many storehouses 



180 THE CLASH 

upon which man may draw if he has the key ; and 
the key that unlocks the storehouse is education. 
Thought makes man, and if all have the same key, 
if all draw upon the same storehouse, then all men 
will think alike: will, in fact, be homogeneous. 
That is the reasoning of those who strive for a com- 
mon language. Since the State is the arbiter of 
the language to be chosen — and, under democracy, 
the State usually means the major nationality — the 
result is an effort of the majority to impose its 
language upon the minority. 

There are some who do not fall in with this 
reasoning, and contend that just as the world is 
better for its infinite diversity of character, so the 
State is better for diversity to the extent of the 
capacity of its machinery to provide preservation 
for several national cultures. But the bulk of the 
reasoning has been the other way; it is only within 
recent years, for causes which will soon become 
apparent, that men have come to the conclusion 
that not only on the old moral grounds, but for 
reasons of self-interest, the State should protect 
and preserve as valuable assets its national cul- 
tures. 

The theory of those who would have all within 
the same state of the same national character, has 
been called that of "the Nation-State." Here 
again we must be clear-minded. The idea of the 
Nation-State is of comparatively recent origin. 
Ernest Barker, a Fellow of Oxford, in contributing 
an interesting essay to the "Unity of Western Civil- 



BENEATH THE SURFACE 181 

isation," says that in the Middle Ages "there was a 
contracted world, which men could regard as a 
unity, with a single centre of coherence. There 
was a low stage of economic development, which 
on the one hand meant a general uniformity of 
life, in fief and manor and town, and on the other 
hand meant a local isolation, that needed, and in the 
unity of the Church found, some method of unifica- 
tion. With many varieties of dialect, there was 
yet a general identity of language, which made 
possible the development, and fostered the dis- 
semination, of a single and identical culture. Na- 
tionalism, whether as an economic development, or 
as a way of life and a mode of the human spirit was 
as yet practically unknown. Races might disagree ; 
classes might quarrel; kings might fight; there was 
hardly ever a national conflict in the proper sense 
of the word. The mediaeval lines of division, it is 
often said, were horizontal rather than vertical. 
There were dififerent estates rather than different 
states. The feudal class was homogeneous through- 
out Western Europe; the clerical class was a single 
corporation through all the extent of Latin Chris- 
tianity; and the peasantry and the townsfolk of 
England were very little different from the peas- 
antry and the townsfolk of France." 

The last of the Crusades ended in 1272. Then 
began the disintegration of Western civilisation. 
All Europe was compelled to face a returned sol- 
dier problem. Men who had felt the pulsation of 
the wide world found it difficult to content them- 



182 THE CLASH 

selves in obscure villages and in the humdrum life 
of the farm. The transport had been followed by 
the ship of trade. New wants were created and new 
commodities had to be acquired for their satisfac- 
tion. There was town work for the returned sol- 
diers and their great-great-grandchildren. The 
villains and copyholders of the land became vil- 
lains and copyholders of the town. Commerce 
supplanted agriculture, and gradually assumed 
regional identity because of regional capacity. 
Then came competition, one region against the 
other, and the protection of the regions' trade inter- 
ests by powder. The Mohammedans could con- 
tinue their journeys to Mecca undisturbed; no 
longer was there need to kill Christians ; war with 
Christians became a Mohammedan pastime, not a 
Mohammedan necessity, for the Christians were 
killing themselves. Martin Luther converted the 
Pope's bull into ashes on December 10, 1520. 
Henceforth the Christian religion ceased to be a 
centripetal force. For no sooner had Protestantism 
been accomplished, than religion — as in heathen 
days — became regional. And religion served as a 
text, or pretext, for inter-regional combats. An in- 
numerable number of totem-designed standards 
supplanted the common banner of the Cross. The 
Christian religion then became a centrifugal force. 
Latin no longer served to satisfy the classes who, 
becoming conscious of an identity with the masses 
of their regions, turned to the local dialects and 
sought to weld them with their Latin (classic and 



BENEATH THE SURFACE 183 

vulgar) into national tongues. Languages also 
became regional. So ran the course towards 
regionality and nationality. In a few minutes we 
may turn the pages of history in which it is writ- 
ten, and the very ease with which we read it serves 
to prevent us from realising the length of ages 
involved in its completion. 

In spite of these mighty forces, the idea of na- 
tionality, as identical with a region and a state 
organisation, did not come to fruition until the first 
half of the nineteenth century. People with differ- 
ent cultures continued to live (and not always hap- 
pily) under common political organisations. There 
were wars then, as now; and a casting about for a 
political panacea resulted in the idea of the Nation- 
State. It was at first accepted as an inspiration 
from Heaven. 

Boundary lines were no longer to follow eco- 
nomic lines, to be determined by navigable rivers, 
ports, coal mines, and the balance between agri- 
culture and industry. National characters were 
to guide statesmen in the laying out of self-govern- 
ing countries. That was the policy which would 
make for harmony. Although this doctrine was 
no man's special preaching, one name stands out 
prominently in its preaching, that of Joseph Maz- 
zini. Born in Genoa in 1805, twenty-five years 
later he was lining up a Young Italy Republican 
Organisation. There are several of them in New 
York, but this one aimed at Italian, not American 
politics. Mazzini was not content to wield the 



184 THE CLASH 

pen alone; he yearned for the sword. But his 
efforts in the military field were a failure, and 
in 1849 he and Garibaldi were compelled to 
fiee for their lives, their revolution crushed. How- 
ever, substantial ruins were left, and upon these 
King Victor Immanuel, aided by the great ability 
of his minister, Cavour, succeeded in making the 
Italy of to-day. 

With the military campaigns that made Italy a 
nation, we are not here concerned; but with Maz- 
zini's doctrine we are very much concerned. "The 
map of Europe will be remade," wrote Mazzini, 
the enthusiast. "The countries of the peoples will 
arise, defined by the voice of the free, upon the 
ruins of the countries of kings and privileged 
castes. Between these countries there will be har- 
mony and brotherhood . . . Then each of 
you, strong in the afifections and aid of many mil- 
lions of men speaking the same language and edu- 
cated in the same historic tradition, may hope by 
your personal effort to benefit the whole of Human- 
ity." 

As will be seen, Mazzini confused democracy 
with freedom and ignored the fact that seldom is 
there a geographical distribution of nationalities 
which provides the way for boundaries to cover a 
national body politic as a garment covers the 
human body. The doctrine designed for good, 
through this fatal error, worked incalculable suf- 
fering in application. In the nineteenth century 
nationalities struggled for the possession of state* 



BENEATH THE SURFACE 185 

hood, and eloquent were the pleas made for the 
sacredness of race and national self-expression. 
"But that very growth of national consciousness 
which inspired the struggle for freedom," says L. 
T. Hobhouse, "turned to exclusiveness and imperi- 
ousness as soon as it had achieved its end, and na- 
tionality as an exclusive principle — as a kind of 
collective egoism justifying itself, as ordinary ego- 
ism is never allowed to justify itself, in contempt 
for law and justice and the corresponding rights 
of others — has become the dominating force in 
twentieth century politics." The sacredness and 
inviolability of nationality were apparently only 
for majorities, only for those who were strong 
enough to protect themselves. As the old pro- 
verb has it, "The strong is always right." 

Canada attempted to solve its differences of na- 
tionality by a practical application of the Nation- 
State when it created the divisions of Upper and 
Lower Canada. It was clearly the intention that 
Upper Canada should be mainly English, and 
Lower Canada mainly French. The change of 
names in later days to Ontario and Quebec did not 
alter the situation. These provinces were to be 
nation-provinces in the sense that English-Cana- 
dians would control one and French-Canadians the 
other. And only in that sense, for there were French 
in both provinces and English in both. Success was 
thus assured only in the event of the controlling 
nationality avoiding "a contempt for law and jus- 
tice and the corresponding rights of others" ; avoid- 

14 



186 THE CLASH 

ing the "collective egoism" which, leading to 
a belief in its own superiority, would urge it to 
force its own mentality upon the other. 

Let it not be forgotten that this tendency and its 
consequences, which have led up to the present 
situation in Ontario, were foreseen by some of the 
fathers of Confederation. M. Dorion, who was 
one of the fathers, said in the debates: "There is 
at this moment a movement on the part of the 
British Protestants" — note the combination of na- 
tionality and religion — "in Lower Canada to have 
some protection and guarantee for their educa- 
tional establishments in this province put into the 
scheme of Confederation, should it be adopted; and 
far from finding fault with them, I respect them 
the more for their energy in seeking the protection 
for their separate interest. I know that majorities 
are naturally aggressive, and how the possession of 
power engenders despotism, and I can understand 
how a majority, animated this moment by the best 
feelings, might in six or nine months be willing to 
abuse its power and trample on the rights of the 
minority, while acting in good faith, and on what 
it considered to be its right." The situation then 
in Ontario was in some respects that of Ireland to- 
day; where a minority, holding to separate relig- 
ious ideals and traditions, fears the aggression of 
the majority. The fact that the Irish minority is 
Protestant and the Ontario minority is Catholic, 
does not alter the principle involved, although, I 
fear, it alters the line-up of supporters. 



BENEATH THE SURFACE 187 

But M. Cartier thought there was no need for 
words precisely protecting the minorities in Que- 
bec and Ontario, to be written into the Constitu- 
tion; and he was also a father of Confederation. 
"What would be the consequence, even supposing 
any such thing were attempted by any one of the 
local governments?" he asked. "It would be 
censured everywhere. Whether it came from Up- 
per Canada or from Lower Canada, any attempt 
to deprive the minority of their rights, would be 
at once thwarted." In other words, while "British 
Protestants"— using M. Dorion's words— were to 
control one Province and French Catholics the 
other, in both, the rights of the minority were to 
be protected by a sense of fair play. The "British 
Protestants" in Quebec were to be continued in 
the freedom of self-expression by the spirit of 
toleration which M. Cartier believed would char- 
acterise the major nationalities in both provinces. 
That was the spirit of the fathers of Confederation. 
Through the Debates, we find the words "British" 
and "Protestant" used in the same sense. As 
evidence of the understanding, I submit that for 
some years in that spirit the affairs of Ontario were 
administered. No attempt was made to deprive 
the French-Canadians of freedom in cultural self- 
expression. It may be good law, but it is a gross 
violation of the spirit of Confederation, now to 
contend that the British North America Act was 
designed to protect merely Catholic rights in On- 
tario and Manitoba, and Protestant rights in Que- 



188 THE CLASH 

bee, and not French-Canadian rights and British- 
Canadian rights as well. 

Astute M. Dorion! Confiding M. Cartierl 
From where was the censure to come? How far 
would the feeble voices of the French-Canadians 
carry? There are more French-speaking men, 
women, and children in the Province of Ontario, 
than in the whole of Alsace-Lorraine; but the 
French of Alsace-Lorraine have a bigger brother 
in France than the French of Ontario have in Que- 
bec. Of course, this question must finally go 
before the bar of the world's opinion, but, in the 
meantime the minority must suffer, and the major- 
ity, the State itself, must suffer, for nothing eats 
farther into the vitals of a body politic than the 
existence of a body of people whose cries for jus- 
tice fall upon ears that will not hear. 

In neither Province has the majority a free hand 
to exact its pound of flesh, under the wording of 
the British North America Act, any more than 
kings in the days of Rule by Divine Right were jus- 
tified in pursuing their own selfish ends. Con- 
clusions as to acts involving religion and nation- 
ality are so often drawn as a result of prejudice, 
that I must cite the opinion of an authority in this 
connection whose devotion to Protestantism and 
Anglo-Saxonism is beyond suspicion. In the issue 
of May 23, 1916, the "Witness" (published in 
Montreal) stated: "As to the argument that the 
English language alone should have unquestioned 
rights in Ontario because it is an English Prov- 



BENEATH THE SURFACE 189 

ince, would not the corollary be that the French 
language alone should have unquestioned rights in 
Quebec as it is a French province? When was it 
ever settled that Ontario should be entirely Eng- 
lish and Quebec entirely French? It is only neces- 
sary to put these questions fairly before the mind 
to realise that the educational policy in any of the 
provinces cannot be divorced from the larger poli- 
tical considerations which were in mind when Con- 
federation was formed. To ignore these con- 
clusions is, we believe, dangerous, and destined to 
introduce serious elements of disruption in the 
country." But I fail to find in the English press 
of Ontario — and upon Ontario rests the decision 
— an equally Christian view. 

Let us now submit our Canadian situation to 
the light of the world's experience. 



Books op Rdi^ereinc^ 

Ernest Baker and Others, The Unity of Western Civili- 
sation. Medford. 

L. T. Hobhouse, Questions of War and Peace. T. 
Fisher Unwin. 

M. Moncalm, The Origin of Thought and Speech. 
Kegan Paul Trench Triibner & Co. 



CHAPTER XI 



THE FUTILITY OF FORCE 



The night before Alexander of Macedon went 
East on his celebrated journey of conquest, Aris- 
totle, with the privilege of an old master — he had 
been Alexander's tutor for eight years, and was 
then conducting a private school in the Capital 
— took his former pupil aside for a few words 
of advice; the kind of talk one would expect 
under the same circumstances, from an old 
dominie. 

"You arc about to start upon an enterprise which 
will bring you into many lands," said Aristotle, 
"and amongst many nations, some already cele- 
brated in arts and arms, some savage and unknown. 
But this last counsel I give you : whithersoever your 
victories lead you, never forget that you are a 
Greek, and everywhere draw hard and fast the 
line that separates the Greek from the barbarian." 

"No," answered the headstrong, youthful Alex- 
ander. "I will pursue another policy. I will make 
all men Hellenes. That shall be the purpose of 
my victories." 

Alexander was successful in mighty feats of 
arms; he overran Persia, subdued Phoenicia, con- 
quered Syria, was made King of Egypt, and re- 
ceived the allegiance of all Afghanistan and part 

190 



THE FUTILITY OF FORCE 191 

of India. He took from the men of many lands 
their liberties, destroyed their cities and made 
slaves. But he didn't make Greeks. 

There was then no recognised code of morality 
directing the conqueror to respect the group 
culture of the conquered; no "squeamish senti- 
mentality" about the rights of minor nationalities. 
"You know as well as we do," said the Athenians, 
in 416 B.C., to the representatives of a small peo- 
ple of that day, "that right, as the world goes, is 
only in question between equals in power; while 
the strong do what they can and the weak suffer 
what they must." And yet then as now, the strong 
were impotent to spread culture by the sword. The 
men who lost their cities and their liberties refused 
to become Greeks ; those who were left free, to re- 
fuse or to accept as they pleased, whose eyes were 
not filled with tears of sorrow, or blinded with pre- 
judice, found in the culture of Aristotle a pearl of 
great price, and willingly placed it in the family 
storeroom, but remained nationally what they were 
— barbarians to the Greeks. 

The spirit of nationality becomes intensified by 
restraint, for it is only under threatened depriva- 
tion that its value is fully appreciated. Air is in- 
dispensable, and yet only those who have gasped 
for want of it, really appreciate its supreme value. 
Nationality has been as free as air to English- 
speaking Canadians, and that is why they have 
seldom stopped to consider what it means to them 
and what its deprivation means to others. National 



192 THE CLASH 

culture is as sacred as the memory of a mother's 
prayers. It is the "home fire" which every man, 
woman, and child, has the instinctive impulse to 
keep burning. Just as the Parsees — again a story 
of compulsion — carried from Persia centuries ago 
the sacred fire of their fathers to India and to this 
day keep it burning, so do men jealously guard 
their national culture as an inheritance of the past 
and keenly realise the responsibility of handing it 
down intact, brighter and better, to future genera- 
tions. That is why men will not yield their nation- 
ality before physical force. It is more precious 
than the individual lives which have often been 
given in its preservation. 

The explorations of La Salle and La Verendrye; 
the adventures of the coureurs-des-bois; the sacri- 
fices and martyrdoms of the Jesuits ; the struggles 
of Hebert, who first of white men tilled the soil of 
Canada; these things are the heirlooms of the 
French-Canadian nationality, the common pos- 
session of poor and rich alike, and they may not 
be taught in the French language in Ontario, ex- 
cept in the first two years of the pupil's school life, 
when the pupil is too young to understand. They 
are educational assets, the assets of mankind, more 
valuable in character-building than arithmetic, 
geometry, and algebra. Preserved in the French 
language, they are the special assets of the French- 
Canadian, for the father's example has ever had a 
special meaning for the father's son. The lesson is 
gone, the unselfish incentive to strive is lost, when 



THE FUTILITY OF FORCE 193 

these things are taught in an alien tongue. In Eng- 
lish these exploits and sacrifices are interesting in- 
cidents; in French, to the French-Canadians, they 
are patterns of character. Let us bring the thing 
home to ourselves— if we can— as English-speak- 
ing men. The story of Nelson's famous battle, and 
his still more famous legend, "England expects 
every man to do his duty," are related in every 
schoolhouse in the United Kingdom, in Canada, 
everywhere the English language is spoken, as an 
incentive to greatness. If Englishmen were for- 
bidden by law to have that story, and others so 
freely written over the glorious pages of English 
history, told to English children in the English 
tongue, it would illustrate only the decline of 
greatness — not its glory. 

There is no conflict in the United States, simply 
because men and women of alien tongue went to 
that country only after having decided that they 
preferred to draw from the English-American cul- 
tural storehouse; many were tempted by American 
dollars to abandon the old and draw from the new. 
The few who were of a conquered alien national- 
ity had not the will to continue. But where a 
nationality has become established in a country 
and has built around its rivers, lakes, mountains 
and plains, a culture of its own, it will not give up 
at the demand of an alien nationality made dom- 
inant by conquest or immigration. That is the 
point to remember. I must be pardoned for 
repeating it, since it is the gist of the lesson. The 



194 THE CLASH 

old language will not be given up — if it is a suit- 
able tool, or can be made such for the necessities 
of the spiritual and economic life of the people. 
"As a native of the Highlands," writes Dr. Alex- 
ander Dufif, the Indian educationist, "I vividly 
realised the fact that the Gaelic language, though 
powerful for lyric and other poetry and for pop- 
ular address, contained no words that could pos- 
sibly meet the objects of a higher comprehensive 
education." Thus the language of the North- 
ern Scot, slowly but without compulsion, yielded 
to that of the Englishman. If there had been 
compulsion? The story of the Covenanters is a suf- 
ficient answer. Economic advantage, science, and 
literature, all would have been submerged in the 
will to preserve. 

Let me try to make this point plain to those 
who have no will to understand, for it is funda- 
mental. I do not seek to maintain that nationality 
is imperishable. Indeed the world is in a constant 
state of flux ; families are constantly changing from 
one nationality to another — but only when left free 
to choose, when unhampered in the use of the old. 
Nationality may be steered, but it cannot be towed ; 
it will not yield to force. That is the teaching of 
history. Mr. Toynbee says in "The New Europe" : 
"Where a minority has abandoned its mother 
tongue, it has done so without pressure, as the Irish 
have exchanged Erse for English in their national 
literature. Where a minority has clung to its 
native speech it has been allowed to retain it, as 



THE FUTILITY OF FORCE 195 

Welsh has been retained in parts of Wales as an 
instrument for poetry and primary education. Only 
the more lately emancipated languages of Central 
and Eastern Europe, have become committed to a 
disastrous struggle for existence." Mr. Toynbee's 
study was confined to Europe, because it was de- 
signed to diagnose conditions affecting the war. If 
he had included the New World in his range, he 
would have found another people who, in British 
North America, are "committed to a disastrous 
struggle for existence." 

The Jews, perhaps, furnish the best object les- 
son of the futility of restriction. For many years, 
different States of Europe tried to destroy this race, 
religion, nationality — call it what you will — shut it 
up in a ghetto; prohibited it from owning lands; 
limited it in the choice of occupations; and often 
compelled it to wear a "badge," as if the Jew were 
a leper barred from contact with the rest of so- 
ciety. In spite of all, the Jew held on, the more a 
Jew because of the repression. That was repres- 
sion at its best — or at its worst — certainly at its 
strongest. 

Turkey is Germany's most legitimate partner in 
the present war. For years the Turks tried to 
hammer the peoples, who composed their vast, con- 
glomerate empire, into homogeneity. For many 
generations, the distinctive nationalities within the 
Balkans were subjected to Turkish rule and sub- 
jected to the Turkish crucible and yet "the Dip- 
lomatist," author of "Nationalism and the War in 



196 THE CLASH 

the Near East," tells us "on the reflux of the Turk- 
ish inundation the Bulgar reappeared a Bulgar and 
all the more a Bulgarian for having so long been 
a Greek rayah and an Ottoman subject, the Serb 
reappeared as the most Slav of Slavs, and all the 
more Slavonic for having been a Turk, an Austrian 
or a Hungarian according to the vicissitudes of the 
time. It would seem as though the deeper the sub- 
mergence and the more sweeping the inundation, 
the more does anything atrophied or alien get 
purged out of the national character." The 
Armenians, wilfully persisting in living up to the 
traditions of their fathers, were scourged by Turk 
with torch and sword — and still there are Armeni- 
ans. Turkey passed school regulations to destroy 
the nationality of the Albanians, submitted them 
to property and civil disqualifications — and still 
there are Albanians. 

About the time of the British North America 
Act, Holstein and Schleswig became parts of Ger- 
many. Previously they had been under the direct 
rule of the King of Denmark, although Holstein 
was even then a part of the loosely-joined German 
Confederacy. The population of Schleswig-Hol- 
stein was mainly of the German tongue, but was 
apparently satisfied with its political condition 
until an attempt was made to force linguistic con- 
version upon it. The situation was complicated, 
as will be seen from this paragraph by Dr. Rose 
in "The Development of European Nations": 
"The fervent nationalists in Denmark, while leav- 



THE FUTILITY OF FORCE 197 

ing Holstein to its German connections, had re- 
solved thoroughly to 'Danify' Schleswig, the north- 
ern half of which was wholly Danish, and they 
pressed on this policy by harsh and intolerant meas- 
ures, making it difficult or well-nigh impossible 
for the Germans to have public worship in their 
own tongue and to secure German teachers for 
their children in the schools. Matters were al- 
ready in a very strained state, when shortly before 
the death of King Frederick VII of Denmark 
(November, 1863), the Rigsraad at Copenhagen 
sanctioned a constitution for Schleswig, which 
would practically have made it a part of the Danish 
monarchy." Then came the crisis. 

But Germany was not ready for immediate 
action. In those days Germany did not want a 
world-war. A little state like Denmark it did not 
mind violating, especially since Denmark had 
violated the principles of nationality by attempting 
to cast the Germans of Schleswig in a Danish 
mould. Looking about for public support, Ger- 
many found in Napoleon III, who sat upon the 
throne of France, a ready tool. The Third 
Napoleon, in the historian's opinion, was more 
than a bit of a fool. As M. Falloux said of him: 
"He does not know the difference between dream- 
ing and thinking." He had accepted the Mazzini 
doctrine, but had failed to see its legitimate out- 
come. "I shall always be consistent in my con- 
duct," he said. "If I have fought for the inde- 
pendence of Italy, if I have lifted up my voice for 



198 THE CLASH 

Polish nationality, I cannot have other sentiments 
in Germany, or obey other principles." Napoleon 
saw only the Germans in Schleswig-Holstein — and 
indeed they were the more numerous — but there 
were Danes. And no sooner had they been brought 
under German jurisdiction than Germany sought 
to Germanise them. The Germans of Holstein 
were out of the frying-pan, but the Danes of Schles- 
wig were in the fire. 

Let us briefly follow the results. With map of 
Europe in hand, the reader will at once see that 
Schleswig is geographically a part of Germany; 
the economic interests of its inhabitants naturally 
swing south towards the 60 million and more Ger- 
mans, rather than north towards the 2^ million 
Danes of Denmark. The highly developed social 
and intellectual life of the German people might 
ordinarily have been counted on to absorb the 
Schleswigers. There was no bar of religion be- 
tween the two nationalities as in Canada, for the 
Danish Church is a modified form of Lutheran- 
ism. The ground had seemingly been prepared 
by Nature for homogeneity. And in the opinion 
of competent Danish students, homogeneity would 
have been secured in time, had not the Germans — 
"political asses" that they are, to use Herr Althofif's 
expressive words — failed to recognise that the 
road to homogeneity lies in freedom of cul- 
ture, not in its repression. The Germans per- 
versely chose to ignore the teachings of history, 
and set about securing unification by the dis- 



THE FUTILITY OF FORCE 199 

credited means of force. The work was conducted 
with that commendable thoroughness which the 
German applies to every job, from pig-sticking to 
ship-building. 

The school regulations required a thorough 
teaching of German, as the Ontario regulations 
since 1912 require a thorough teaching of Eng- 
lish in the French districts. Ontario has vacillated 
in the work of restriction; Germany, for as many 
years as there are years in the Canadian Confedera- 
tion calendar, has sternly and systematically and 
persistently attempted to force the Schleswigers to 
learn the German language. Yet all that while the 
Danes have been passing through the German 
schools only to disdain the use of the German lan- 
guage in after life; only to cling to the Icelandic 
tongue of their Viking forbears; in short, only to 
remain German subjects of Danish nationality. 

Little Belgium also furnishes a lesson in the 
futility of attempting to secure homogeneity by the 
school crucible. She gained her independence; 
was separated from Holland in 1831 ; was, in fact, 
born of a protest against the attempt to submerge 
national sentiment, and has in the course of her 
career, passed through many experiences illustra- 
tive of the relations which nationalities should, and 
should not, bear to each other within a common 
State. Of the birth of Belgium, and as it exists 
to-day, Joseph McCabe tells us : "William of Hol- 
land made the world-old and world-discredited 
mistake of aiming at uniformity. The threat to 



200 THE CLASH 

their religion and their language stirred at length 
the slow-moving Flemings, and they supported the 
revolt of the more fiery and more aggressive Wal- 
loons." 

The people of the new kingdom were of two 
nationalities, the Flemings and the Walloons. Pro- 
testing against being forcibly converted into Dutch- 
men, the two partners hardly had got started in 
the business of running a State themselves, before 
each nationality set about making over the 
other, and as usual by way of the schoolhouse, re- 
peating the "world-old and world-discredited mis- 
take." The Walloons, for the most part, spoke 
French, and the Flemings spoke Flemish. Each 
nationality thought its language should be that of 
the schools, the courts and the State. The two 
nationalities are divided in Belgium almost as are 
English-Canadians and French-Canadians in On- 
tario and Quebec, the one inhabiting the North- 
western portion of Belgium, north of a line drawn 
through Courtrai and Louvain, the other be- 
ing south of that line. But dispersed through the 
two parts are settlements of the minority, as in 
Quebec and in Ontario. It was in those dis- 
persed settlements, that the conflict arose and ran 
its most turbulent course. 

The Flemish tongue is of comparatively little 
value in international trade, argued the Walloon; 
and besides, we want unity in the development of 
our nation. Let us take the language of France; 
it is valuable in commerce and rich in literature. 



THE FUTILITY OF FORCE 201 

The argument seemed good to all the Walloons 
and to none of the Flemings. Our tongue is dis- 
tinctive, replied the Flemings; and a very good 
tongue it is. Most of the inhabitants of Belgium 
speak it now. If it be given up for French, it 
is only a matter of a short time when Belgium will 
be given up to France. That seemed a good 
argument to all the Flemings, and to none of the 
Walloons. Incidentally, the latter half of the 
Flemings' argument has been made before, and 
made by Englishmen, on behalf of the French 
language in Canada; for in the early days it was 
considered that individuality in language was the 
best guarantee that this country would not be 
eventually absorbed by the virile young United 
States just across the way. 

From argument, the rival nationalities in Bel- 
gium proceeded to invective. "Patois!" they 
shouted at each other. The cry of inferiority is 
ever-ready in the clashing of nationalities. The 
Walloon nicknamed the Fleming a "Flamingant," 
and the Fleming replied by derisively call- 
ing the Walloon a "Fransquillon." Each sought 
to belittle the other's accomplishments; not 
in commerce, because that affected the common 
purse, but in literature and in social life. Each 
nationality considered it a matter of loyalty to 
refrain from learning the other's speech. "A coun- 
try committed to bi-lingualism for all eternity I" 
"It is unthinkable!" They argued in words that 
are frequently heard in Ontario. There was Hades 

15 



202 THE CLASH 

in Belgium; of course, not as much as since 1914, 
but enough to make things uncomfortably hot 
"When the question of language comes up in 
Parliament, everyone speaks at once, and we hear 
nothing," mournfully complained the Speaker of 
the Chamber of Deputies. 

At first, the Flemings had the worst of it. French 
was the language of Court life, of polite society, 
and of big business. Flemish was limited in the 
schools, and practically excluded from the courts 
of justice. There was much in the contention of 
the Walloons that Flemish had failed to rank 
among the cultural languages of the day. The 
Flemings are, broadly speaking, descended from 
Frankish tribes, who, tired of moving about North- 
ern Europe, squatted in what is now Belgium in 
the fourth and succeeding centuries, but subse- 
quently came the Beige, who was Gallic, and the 
Saxon who was Low German, and out of the mix- 
ture of Frank, Beige, and Saxon, was created a new 
subdivision in races — the Flemish. Their language 
is described by the philologist as southern Dutch 
in vocabulary, structure, and grammar, bearing a 
very close resemblance to middle Dutch; but in 
details, choice of idioms, and turns of expression, 
it exhibits a certain measure of independence. The 
philologist adds that "Flemish gives the impres- 
sion of being an uncultivated, unliterary tongue" 
— an altogether unlovely material out of which to 
make literature. 

But charges of inferiority pressed the Flemings 



THE FUTILITY OF FORCE 203 

together, made them resolve that their language 
should become impeccable. A national society was 
formed, which strove with all the intensity of a 
movement writhing under the sting of the charge 
of inferiority, to place Flemish freely in the schools 
and courts. Men strove for fame in literature, in 
the consciousness that they were benefitting not 
merely themselves, but also and mainly the na- 
tional circle to which they belonged. Then came 
Maeterlinck and Conscience, to whom the liter- 
ary world paid homage. The Flemish were no 
longer "Flamingants"; they had won a place in 
national culture. They were Belgians. The 
court appointed Henri Conscience, the great novel- 
ist, as tutor to the Royal Princes — and society, as 
ever, followed its lead. Conscience did more than 
teach the Royal Princes ; he went into the school- 
houses and taught the language he loved to the 
children from the homes of rich and poor alike. 
On the pedestal of his statue in Antwerp — if it has 
not been destroyed by the Germans — are these 
words : "To him who taught our people to read." 
Not to know Flemish was no longer a badge of 
superiority : it was just plain ignorance. The Wal- 
loons who had turned up their French noses at the 
dialect of the "Flamingant," found a strange and 
previously unseen beauty in the Flemish language 
— after it had been admitted to the Civil Service, 
and the best positions went to the men who could 
speak the two languages of the country. Possibly 
a beauty now hidden in the French and English 



204 THE CLASH 

languages would be uncovered to some if a knowl- 
edge of both were made obligatory in Canada's 
Civil Service. 

Belgium came gradually to the consciousness 
that it was irretrievably bi-lingual, and reformed 
its schools accordingly. "Since the knowledge of 
Flemish has become absolutely indispensable in 
many professions, and above all in the legal pro- 
fession, the schools have devoted themselves, all 
over Belgium, to giving the pupils a thorough 
practical knowledge of the two languages," re- 
ported T. R. Dawes, a Welshman and the head 
master of the Pembroke Dock County School, in 
1902, after an investigation of the school system of 
Belgium. 

Of course, there were "die-hard" Flemings and 
"die-hard" Walloons; but the better sense of the 
country was for harmony through mutual respect, 
and besides, years of struggle had revealed the 
futility of relying upon schoolroom restrictions as 
a means of securing homogeneity. 

The results of freedom and restriction are con- 
trasted in the experiences of Alsace and Lorraine 
under French and German dominations. It must 
be remembered that the people of these provinces 
were originally of Baltic blood, and further, of its 
Teutonic subdivision. Their commonly used 
tongue was originally, and is to-day, akin to Ger- 
man. In 1871, Lorraine had been a part of France 
for only 100 and Alsace for only 200 years; 
yet both Alsatians and Lorrainers, if not of French 



THE FUTILITY OF FORCE 205 

nationality in 1871, certainly preferred to remain 
a part of France. They had become tied to 
France by the silken cords of affection. 

Contrast their treatment by France with their 
treatment by Germany, and contrast their feelings 
for France with their feelings for Germany. 
Surely here is an apt lesson for us! What are 
the means by which the affection and the loyalty 
of a nationality are secured? the means by which 
its disaffection and disloyalty are avoided? That 
is the lesson we seek. 

Professor Hazen of Columbia tells us that, 
on the one hand, by France "the traditions 
of the land were respected. No attempt was 
made to force the Alsatians to use the French 
language. No military service was required of 
them. The result of this wise policy was to create 
the felicitous impression among the people con- 
cerned that nothing or almost nothing was changed. 
Friction was thus avoided. Life moved along 
normally and in the same old grooves. The new 
regime could strike roots, slowly it is true, but all 
the more solidly. No racial opposition was 
aroused. Changes were effected, but so gradually 
and so beneficently that only the advantages of the 
new connection were apparent." In the course of 
time the Alsatians and Lorrainers saw with the 
clear eyes of free men the advantage of learning 
French. 

"The House of Bourbon, from the Treaty 
of Westphalia to the French Revolution, never 



206 THE CLASH 

thought of preventing or hampering the use of 
German in Alsace, never considered its suppres- 
sion necessary as a means of hastening the assimila- 
tion of the province." 

That the many in Alsace and Lorraine did learn 
French, was due to the attractiveness of French 
literature, French culture and, above all, to the 
winsomeness of French character. The Alsa- 
tians and Lorrainers became French simply be- 
cause in course of time they learned to like the 
French and what the French stood for. 

Professor Hazen tells us that, on the other hand, 
Germany's "first act was to eliminate almost com- 
pletely the study of French from the curriculum of 
the schools, at the same time ordaining universal 
and obligatory attendance and increasing the 
salaries of the teachers. When the study of French 
was not entirely suppressed, it was relegated to a 
peculiar place. The curriculum of the school in 
Mulhouse, as described by a speaker in the Reich- 
stag in 1872, prescribed the teaching 'of history in 
German, of geography in German, of penmanship 
in French (laughter), of drawing in French 
(laughter)." It is a question whether Ontario is 
now more generous than Germany was then, for 
under Regulation 17, penmanship and drawing 
may not be taught in French, since English be- 
comes the language of general instruction as soon 
as the pupil is old enough to draw and write. 
"The Germans have had forty-five years in which 
to reconcile these people of German descent to 



THE FUTILITY OF FORCE 207 

their rc-union with the parent stock," writes Ram- 
say Muir. "They have utterly failed. They 
have only succeeded in arousing against them- 
selves an intense and enduring distaste." 

Could there be a plainer and more insistent les- 
son in history than that loyalty is the consequence 
of liberty? disloyalty, the consequence of restric- 
tion? The Alsatians were left free to speak Ger- 
man under French rule, were assisted in educating 
their children by means of the German tongue — 
and remained French ; the Alsatians were forced to 
speak German, to have their children educated in 
German, under German rule — and refused to be- 
come German. The French successfully steered 
nationality; the Germans failed to tow it. And 
humanity is much the same the world over. 

Those who are astounded at the stupidity or the 
blindness of the Germans in failing to discover the 
path towards homogeneity, have only to survey con- 
ditions in Canada. Here the French-Canadian 
nationality is immeasurably farther away from as- 
similation than it was before Regulation 17 was 
devised for its immersion in the English language. 
For years, France had not held sway over the 
hearts of the French-Canadians. The younger 
generation was convinced of British justice, British 
stability, and British integrity, and had become 
sincerely attached to British traditions. Instruc- 
tion in the two languages was regarded as a neces- 
sary means to education. The educated of the 
French nationality spoke the English language as 



208 THE CLASH 

well as their own. But the progress towards as- 
similation has been stayed by the conviction that 
Regulation 17 was intended to be a means of de- 
nationalisation; nor are the French-Canadians to 
be blamed, for as such it has been staged before 
the public in the Province of Ontario. 

Those who speak French in Canada have had 
several hundred years of life in a country in which 
men of sound physique and strong will are bred. 
They have the strong man's will to continue. They 
refuse to allow their nationality to perish in a land 
which was once their fathers'. Would we, 
their compatriots, have it otherwise? A generous 
foe will always admire a stubborn enemy. Even 
the Germans — and in these days we have little 
respect for their fairness — admit that "the energy 
with which the Poles organised their resistance to 
the German attack on their soil deserves admir- 
ation." We English-Canadians call Ontario "our 
soil," but always must we remember that, like 
Schleswig, it once belonged to the men of the 
minor nationality. 

It is a curious law of retribution that the nation 
which attempts to destroy another's culture, invari- 
ably fails to hold its own ; and yet not curious, 
when we remember that to attempt the suppression 
of a national culture is "fighting against God." 
The Germans, who have led the way in forcing 
their language upon others, as immigrants are the 
first to merge themselves in the individuality of 
the State of their adoption. In Brazil there are 



THE FUTILITY OF FORCE 209 

thousands of Germans of the second and third gen- 
eration who have willingly accepted Latin culture 
and allowed their knowledge of German to depre- 
ciate into a doggerel tongue. Even in Westphalia, 
to which many thousand Poles were removed, the 
Germans became largely incorporated into the na- 
tionality of the Slavs, practising their religion, 
speaking their language, and partaking of their 
national aspirations. W. H. Dawson relates an 
amusing incident arising out of a visit paid by Herr 
von Bethmann-Hollweg who, at the time, as Min- 
ister of the Interior, was visiting one of the vil- 
lages in which Germans had been planted in the 
effort to Germanise the Poles. Meeting a German 
colonist the Minister asked: "Well, and how do 
you like your new home?" "All right" was the 
cheery reply ; "except that we cannot yet sufficiently 
understand the Poles. But" (reassuringly) "never 
mind, we shall learn Polish yet." It is Prince von 
Billow who regretfully admits that, "in the strug- 
gle between different nationalities, the German has 
so often succumbed to the Czech and the Slovene, 
the Magyar, and the Pole, the French, and the 
Italian." And with such an admission, the Ger- 
mans fruitlessly, hopelessly, struggle on to make 
all within the German Empire, Teutons. 

Alexander of Macedon would have made all 
men Hellenes. This morning my shoes were pol- 
ished by an heir of this noble Hellenism, and I 
could not but think of Alexander's bold words. 
The Greeks, proud of their attainments, had sought 



210 THE CLASH 

to substitute their culture for the culture of other 
men, and in the inevitable struggle had lost their 
own. Assuming it to be their special mission to 
polish other men's heads, they wound up by polish- 
ing other men's boots. 

Books of Reference 

A Diplomatist (edited by Lord Courtney of Pentwith), 
Nationalism and War in the Near Bast. Carnegie Endow- 
ment for International Peace. Clarendon. 

Arnold Toynbee, The New Europe. Dent. 

J. Holland Rose, The Development of the European Na- 
tions. Constable. 

Arnold Toynbee, Nationality and the War. Dent. 

Joseph McCabe, The Soul of Europe. Dodd, Mead & 
Co. 

Alfred E. Zimmem and Others, The War and Democ- 
racy. Macmillan. 

Ramsay Muir, Nationalism and Internationalism. 
Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 

Prince Bemhard Von Biilow, Imperial Germany. Cas- 
sel. 

Charles Downer Hazen, Alsace-Lorraine Under Ger- 
man Rule. Holt. 

A. H. Buxton, Indian Moral Instruction and Caste 
Problems. Longmans, Green & Co. 

T. R. Dawes, Bi-lingual Teaching In Belgian Schools. 
Cambridge. Dent. 

M. Fishberg, The Jews. Scribners. 



CHAPTER XII 



A STUDY IN PARALLELS 



The conflicts between nationalities, their mo- 
tives, means, and results, are everywhere much the 
same. The full course of the clash has been laid 
bare by historians and philosophers, who have re- 
corded and analysed the relations of Teuton and 
Pole. A comparison of their findings with con- 
ditions as they have been, and are, in Canada, 
reveals an almost uncanny identity, illustrating the 
obvious truth that when men start from the same 
place towards a common object, they necessarily 
travel in parallel paths. 

Towards the end of the eighteenth century, Ger- 
many obtained a slice of Poland — her bit of the 
land which was regarded as essential to the protec- 
tion of the people who call themselves German; 
and with it, several million human beings possess- 
ing a distinct nationality. No sooner had the con- 
quest been effected than Germany, having the 
coveted land, began to wonder what she should do 
with the people. The Russians, confronted with 
the same problem, had attempted to crush their 
share of the Poles by force of arms ; resistance had 
followed force, and massacre had followed re- 
sistance. Of course, this procedure succeeded only 
in making dead Poles; it wholly failed to make 

211 



212 THE CLASH 

living Russians; and, worse than failure, the world 
was shocked. 

Germany did not intend to repeat Russia's mis- 
take. The Slavonic Poles would be made over into 
Teutonic Germans by process of law. Germany 
would do everything according to the code, and 
therefore the world would not be shocked! For 
Germany believed that the Treitschkean doctrine 
of State omnipotence had obtained acceptance 
everywhere. But let me set down the course 
through which the conflict moved, and with it the 
parallel in this country under the English-Cana- 
dian regime. 

Teutonic sentiment is primarily religious and 
Protestant — militantly Protestant. The German 
philosophy that denies the existence of God, or 
limits His attributes to a point where personality 
vanishes, has not taken hold of the average Teu- 
tonic mind ; the great mass of the people are essen- 
tially religious and sincerely — and, as we think, 
mistakenly — see God's personal hand directing 
their collective undertakings. To use the words 
of Gustave le Bon, in the "Pyschology of the Great 
War" : "A vast number of books, most of which 
have been published during the last thirty years, 
demonstrate that the Germans have a greater con- 
ception of their own superiority, than was ever 
before entertained by any nation, except perhaps 
by the Jews of Bible times and the Arabs of 
Mohammed's day. This idea is based chiefly upon 
the illusion that the German race, which is actually 



A STUDY OF PARALLELS 213 

composed of the most heterogeneous elements, is a 
chosen race, specially selected by God for the con- 
quest and subsequent exploitation of the world." 
It naturally follows that God's "peculiar way" 
for the Germans is through the State Church, the 
Lutheran Church, which the Prussians fondly 
regard as the bulwark of Protestantism. To again 
use le Bon's words: "In Treitschke's eyes history 
is simply a divinely regulated development whose 
object is to secure the triumph of the Protestant 
faith, and he considers that the conquest of the 
world has been set apart for the German race, 
which owes its greatness to Luther. With this 
reformer, indeed, the progress of humanity be- 
gins." 

It surely cannot be considered too much to say 
that English-Canadians, who have assumed the 
heavy part in the attempt to make over the French- 
Canadian nationality by means of the school cru- 
cible, have much the same feeling. Later on we 
shall give proof of the contention. In both coun- 
tries there is a sentiment for homogeneity for other 
reasons ; but in both the most turbulent side of the 
stream, the current that never lags in its intensity, 
is religious; and in both countries it is directed 
against Catholicism. For the Slavonic Poles of 
Germany and the French-Canadians are alike in 
being nearly solid in their adherence to the tenets 
of the Roman Catholic faith. 

In Germany and Canada alike the major nation- 
ality fears the destruction of its religion and cul- 



214 THE CLASH 

turc at the hands of an aggressive minor national- 
ity. To Canada, there came few of the French 
tongue to implement the strength of the minor 
nationality. From Germany, mainly to the United 
States, there was a constant stream of Polish 
migration. In both countries, it was pointed 
out that the birth-rate within the minor nationality 
was higher than in the major nationality, and 
figures, ever ready in knowing hands to prove any- 
thing, were made to prove the certainty and the 
imminence of the minor becoming major. 

The Roman Catholic Church sternly forbids 
race suicide, and while the Protestant Churches do 
not encourage and presumably discountenance it, 
the fact remains that the birth-rate is generally 
higher in Catholic communities than in Protestant 
communities. In Canada, using the latest figures 
available (1914) the birth-rate per thousand liv- 
ing is 38 for the Province of Quebec — mainly 
Roman Catholic — and 24 for the Province of On- 
tario — mainly Protestant. The other Provinces 
show wide variations, Manitoba having a birth- 
rate of 33 per thousand, and Nova Scotia 25 per 
thousand. The methods of gathering the statistics 
in the several Provinces are by no means the same, 
and the results are inconclusive. But Quebec is 
undoubtedly the Province of largest families, hav- 
ing 273 children of nine years or under to every 
thousand of population. Ontario has only 200 to 
the thousand, but Ontario is a notorious laggard 
evidently given over to race suicide, and with 



A STUDY OF PARALLELS 215 

British Columbia stands at the bottom of the Pro- 
vincial list. Manitoba has 248 children to the , 
thousand, and in 1901 had 270 to the thousand; so 
that the disproportion between the races is not as 
great as is generally understood. Yet the cry- 
is insistent that some day Anglo-Saxonism and 
Protestantism will be swept away by the higher 
birth-rate of the French-Catholic population. 

Dr. Sarolea is my authority for stating that the 
Germans believe the same of the Poles who "in- 
crease much more rapidly than the Prussians, as 
indeed, to use the expression of Prince von Biilow, 
'they breed like rabbits.' Some means must be used 
to check the Polish advance. It is essential to the 
integrity and preservation of the Empire that the 
Eastern and South-Eastern frontiers shall not fall 
into the hands of a disaffected race." Here we 
have at the outset parallel dangers which the major- 
ities in both countries are unwilling to meet by the 
obvious antidote of competition. 

Then there was also the question of mixed mar- 
riages. While the Roman Catholic Church does 
not actually forbid the marriage of its com- 
municants with those of other faiths, the restrictions 
placed in the way of such marriages make substan- 
tial assimilation by the marrying route impossible. 
In Germany, intermarrying was once regarded as 
the solution of the vexed problem. "The surest 
means of giving this oppressed nation" (Poland) 
"better ideas and morals will always be gradually 
to get them to intermarry with Germans, even if 



216 THE CLASH 

at first it is only two or three of them in every vil- 
lage," was the opinion of Frederick the Great be- 
fore 1772, the year of Poland's partition. But nei- 
ther in Germany nor in Canada was assimilation 
possible by what the Great Frederick regarded as 
"the surest way", although in both countries there 
was an assimilation between the nationalities by the 
intermarriage of Roman Catholics of Slavonic and 
Teutonic origin, and Roman Catholics who spoke 
English and French. But their Roman Catholic 
populations were insufficient to turn the tide of 
population increasing by natural means towards 
the major nationalities. 

What was Germany to do? "Prussia must be 
ruled and administered from the national German 
standpoint," writes Prince von Biilow. "If we 
had allowed the Slavonic element in the East of 
the Prussian Kingdom to extend and flood the Ger- 
man element, as has happened in part of Cislei- 
thania, instead of having a hard fight for German 
nationality in the Eastern Marches to-day, we 
should have had a fight to maintain the unity of 
the Prussian State ; we should not have had a Polish 
problem, we should have had a Polish danger." In 
Canada, it has been similarly maintained that this 
country must be ruled and administered from the 
national Anglo-Saxon standpoint, and not infre- 
quently reference has been made to the Divine 
destiny of the Anglo-Saxon race to rule. The dan- 
gerous old idea of a tribal God, ever ready to smite 
the unchosen races — megalomania — dies slowly. 



A STUDY OF PARALLELS 217 

In Ontario it is pointed out that if we were to allow 
the French- Canadians to extend and flood over 
Northern Ontario, we should some day have to 
fight for the predominance of Anglo-Saxonism. 
Within the past few months hundreds of thou- 
sands of chauvinists' dollars were devoted to 
advertising the imminence of the peril which 
threatens Anglo-Saxonism — and I am not referring 
to official political party literature. In Germany 
there are only 55 Slavonic Poles, as against 925 
Teutons, to the thousand of population ; in Canada, 
28 French-Canadians to the hundred — slight evi- 
dence of danger in either country — but chauvin- 
ism is essentially a matter of sentiment and pre- 
judice, not of reason; and chauvinism, in spite of 
its brave words, is easily frightened by shadows. ' 

In neither country was the aim to drive away the 
minor nationality. "Nobody dreams of wishing to 
thrust our Poles outside the borders of the present 
Kingdom," says Prince von Biilow. Canada 
must have felt likewise, for she has been spending 
substantial sums of money to bring back the 
French-Canadians who have gone to the United 
States. 

If the Poles and the French-Canadians were 
constantly increasing by birth-rate, were not as- 
similable by marriage, were not to be sent out of 
the country, and would not voluntarily give up 
their national culture, what then was to be done to 
secure the homogeneity which, in the thought of 
the dominant parties in both countries, was essen- 

16 



218 THE CLASH 

tial to their own best social and economic lives? 
In both countries, the eyes of statesmen turned to 
the schoolhouse ; it was there that men were made. 
It was in the schoolhouse that mentality was form- 
ed, likes and dislikes imbibed. Hitherto the school 
had made for heterogeneity; hereafter it should 
make for homogeneity. 

In both countries the school situation was 
much the same. When Poland — or rather a part 
of it — became a part of/ the German Empire, its 
inhabitants were given assurances of the pres- 
ervation of their religion, and with it the mainten- 
ance of the Polish language. The assurances, direct 
and implied, were much the same as those given 
to the French-Canadians in the days of the Quebec 
Act, when, it will be remembered, the French-Ca- 
nadians were told by Thurlow that they were to 
retain all their "customs and institutions" which 
did not directly affect their relations to the new 
sovereign. But in both countries conditions had 
changed with time. 

"On behalf of the Prussian Government, it is 
contended," says W. H. Dawson, "that there is con- 
stitutional justification for the invasion and ulti- 
mate cancelling of Polish 'particular' lingual 
rights. Granting that at the time of the partition 
special franchises were promised to the inhabitants 
of the appropriated territories — franchises which 
were to include even 'national representation and 
institutions' long before they were thought of as 
suited to the rest of the Prussian Monarchy — it is 



A STUDY OF PARALLELS 219 

pointed out that half a century ago the rights of 
King and people underwent a complete change, in 
that they ceased to be regulated by tacit and unwrit- 
ten agreement, and were put down in black and 
white in the form of a political constitution. It is, 
therefore, argued that the Prussian constitution of 
1851 must be regarded as superseding all pre-exist- 
ing political arrangements, hence that by accepting 
that document the Poles forfeited all right of ap- 
peal to earlier promises and guarantees. While, 
however, such an argument may be capable of 
satisfying the official conscience, it fails to remove 
the objection of the Poles that the suppression of 
their language is a blow aimed at the race and at 
the sanctities of hearth and home." 

On behalf of the Ontario Government, it is con- 
tended that there is constitutional justification for 
cancelling any privileges which may have been 
previously allowed ; which may have been implied 
in the Quebec Act. Granting that at the time of 
the Conquest the French-Canadians were guaran- 
teed the preservation of their religious faith, and 
that schools were then universally considered as a 
matter of religion (exclusively so in Canada) ; 
granting that the French-Canadians were, for 
many years, continued in the free use of their lan- 
guage, even after Confederation (after the Ottawa 
River had become a boundary line) it is pointed 
out that their special lingual rights had ceased to 
be revealed by tacit and unwritten agreement after 
they had been put down in black and white in the 



220 THE CLASH 

British North America Act. It is therefore argued 
that the Canadian Constitution of 1867 must be 
regarded as superseding all pre-existing political 
arrangements; hence, by accepting the document, 
the French-Canadians have forfeited all right of 
appeal to earlier promises and guarantees. May I 
repeat a sentence from Dawson, which I have just 
quoted, simply changing the word "Poles" into 
"French-Canadians": "While, however, such an 
argument may be capable of satisfying the official 
conscience, it fails to remove the objection of 'the 
French-Canadians' that the suppression of their 
language is a blow aimed at the race and at the 
sanctities of hearth and home." In both countries 
the code, the written law, has been appealed to; 
and in both judicial decisions sustain the legality 
of State action, but did not attempt to pass upon the 
morality of the business. 

Until 1873 all Polish children were instructed 
in the language of their parents; it was provided 
after that year that all instruction was to be given 
in German. Since that time the regulations have 
varied from nothing to a substantial something in 
the extent to which teachers have been permitted 
to instruct their pupils in the use of the parents* 
language. It is necessary that the reader who has 
not closely followed the controversy, should here 
bear in mind the distinction between the teaching 
of a language and teaching in a language. The 
German Government, in its work of denationalisa- 
tion, has proceeded upon the theory that the one 



A STUDY OF PARALLELS 221 

thing needful was to have instruction in general 
subjects, such as mathematics and history, imparted 
solely by means of the German tongue. Germany, 
after all, desired that the son of the conquered 
race should have a Teutonic mind. He might 
speak Polish, or Danish, or French, but v^hat of 
that? Many Prussians of the old stock spoke them 
all. But if the pupil were forced to suck his educa- 
tion through the Teutonic straw, he would acquire 
the all important thing— a Teutonic mentality. 
That was the end towards which all German 
regulations were applied to Polish schools after 

1873. 

It is all very well for the press of Ontario to talk 
of the generous provision (an hour a day) made 
for the teaching of the French language (a few 
minutes for each class) ; but the central idea of 
Regulation 17 — and the bone of contention — is that 
instruction in the subjects of the curriculum shall 
be exclusively in English. A precise setting forth 
of the ways and means by which it is to be accom- 
plished is impossible. Regulation 17 would puz- 
zle not only a Philadelphia lawyer : it almost defied 
the greatest body of legal wisdom in the realm, the 
Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, which it 
will be remembered, found the rule obscure and 
difficult to understand, but concluded that the com- 
plaint of the applicants "was mainly directed" to 
the paragraph "which regulates the use of French 
as the language of instruction and communication" 
and decided that : 



222 THE CLASH 

"In the case of French-speaking pupils, French, 'where 
necessary,' may be used as the language of instruction and 
communication, but not beyond Form I, except on the 
approval of the Chief Inspector in the case of pupils 
beyond Form I, who are unable to speak and understand 
the English language." 

Thus clearly the real object of the Ontario 
regulation is that French-Canadians shall have all 
their mathematics, history, geography, drawing, 
and the whole course which is supposed to con- 
stitute education, imparted to them in English. 
Since the French-Canadian child enters the first 
form when five or six years of age, the effect of 
Regulation 17 is the practical proscription of 
French for purposes of all general education. 
"Just as the twig is bent, the tree's inclined." 

The controversy in Ontario is not primarily 
pedagogical; it is, as in Poland, a clash between 
two nationalities in which one believes that the 
other is seeking its destruction — and the evidence 
compels us to admit not without reason. Mr. C. 
B. Sissons of Victoria University, in his recently 
published book "Bi-Lingual Schools in Canada," 
reports this statement from a former Attorney Gen- 
eral of the Province (the late Hon. J. J. Foy) that 
"no other language (than English) should be 
taught in the schools," and that "there cannot law- 
fully be any bi-lingual schools in the Province of 
Ontario." One is at a loss to know upon what Mr. 
Foy based his opinion that there cannot lawfully 
be any bi-lingual schools in Ontario, but that is not 



A STUDY OF PARALLELS 223 

the serious feature of the statement. The import- 
ance lay not in what was said, but rather in who 
said it. Mr. Foy was then a Minister of the Crown 
in Ontario, the Minister responsible for Ontario's 
law, and his statement must have been accepted by 
English-Canadians as the Government's opinion 
that the French-Canadians had already too many 
rights; and by French-Canadians as equally 
authoritative that the Government was in reality 
preparing for the complete destruction of the 
French language in Ontario. Some may say that 
Mr. Foy was "only speaking politically," but that 
is just the kind of speaking that is most widely 
reported; the kind that, in the heat of elections, 
stirs up trouble which cannot be allayed in calmer 
moments. Nor were the appeals for restriction 
limited to Ontario. Mr. Sissons also gives another 
specimen of the language used by a candidate on 
the Provincial hustings: "It has been stated that I 
am in favour of bi-lingual schools. I will say this, 
that I am entirely opposed to the teaching of 
French in the public or separate school of the 
Province of Ontario. I never at any stage felt any 
doubt as to where I stood. I want to tell you, good 
people, that English is good enough for me. It is 
good enough for the Dominion of Canada. As 
long as I have anything to say in the Legislature I 
will fight for English and English alone." 

There is in this phrase, "It is good enough for 
the Dominion of Canada," more than a veiled hint 
that the French language ought to be abolished 



224 THE CLASH 

rrom Canada. Nor is that by any means isolated 
opinion. It is the sort of thing which has been said 
from the pulpits and hustings of the Province, and 
repeatedly in public print, and all the while 
vehement protests were being made by pulpit, 
hustings and press against the interference of the 
French-Canadians of Quebec in "the affairs of 
Ontario." 

The French-Canadians of Quebec have been 
accused of using intolerant language; of stirring 
their Ontario compatriots into resistance. I in 
truth, M. Bourassa and other champions of the 
French-Canadian nationality have had many bit- 
ter things to say of the English-Canadians of On- 
tario. But we must not forget our inevitable 
parallel from Poland, and this time we may have 
it in few words. Mr. Dawson says: "That the 
Poles have only answered intolerance with intoler- 
ance, bitterness with bitterness, must be frankly 
admitted, and Polish human nature would be very 
different from any other were it otherwise." In 
Canada it is not a case of "the pot calling the kettle 
black." The French-Canadians are being de- 
prived of "natural" rights or privileges — call them 
what you will — that they have been enjoying in 
the schools of Ontario with only fitful interrup- 
tions since before Confederation. They are — view 
the matter as you will — the injured party, and 
would be more than human to suffer without re- 
sentment. But this must be said for them: the 
French-Canadians have not, in their resentment, re- 



A STUDY OF PARALLELS 225 

taliated in the one place where retaliation could 
have been made effective — in the Quebec Legisla- 
ture. The English-speaking minority or the "Brit- 
ish Protestants," as they are called in the Debates 
on the proposals for Confederation, are legally 
entitled to no greater educational rights in Quebec 
than the "French Catholics" in Ontario — and yet 
their interests, in spite of the bitterness of the con- 
flict, have been splendidly conserved. 

Mr. J. C. Sutherland, who is connected with the 
education interests of the minority, tells us "In 
the Regulations of the Catholic Committee — 
a large book of 222 pages — there is a heading in 
bold black type to the pages dealing with the course 
of study which reads : English for English schools, 
French for French schools. It is the emphatic 
symbol of the liberty which is honored in the Prov- 
ince of Quebec." I wonder if any other nationality 
in the world, the Poles for example, could have 
resisted such a temptation to retaliate. 

In both Ontario and Poland the children were 
first to lead a revolt that was not of words. At 
Ottawa, the largest city affected by Regulation 17, 
the school children threw down their books and, 
parading the streets, cried out for justice. Left 
to their own free will, they might have chosen 
the language of commerce; but, with boisterous 
childish voices, refused to accept it by force. 
In Germany, as Dawson tells us: "The famous 
'school strikes' of 1906 — a fitting counterpart to the 
equally memorable Wreschen school-scandals of 



226 THE CLASH 

1901 — came as a reminder of the depth of aggrava- 
tion caused by the language prohibition. These 
strikes began in the autumn of 1906 and lasted into 
the following spring. They originated in the 
diocese of Posen, but spread to other parts of the 
Polish enclave and even to Breslau. In the diocese 
of Posen alone, 40,000 children 'struck.' The re- 
bellion began w^ith a refusal to answer questions in 
German, and it ended in abstention from school 
altogether." The Ottawa strike came in the first 
days of the war, when men's minds were naturally 
turned towards oppression within the German Em- 
pire, and Mr. Asquith, Britain's Premier, analys- 
ing the causes of the war, named the strike 
of the school children in Polish Prussia, and its 
accompanying circumstances "a black chapter even 
in the annals of Prussian culture." 

And to clinch the parallel, there is a "land griev- 
ance" in both countries. If the Poles have had 
slightly worse treatment than the French-Cana- 
dians in the matter of the schools, they have had 
kinder treatment on the land, in the sense that the 
Germans have not violated the security of property. 
The land situations are different, in that in Poland 
the dispute has been over occupied lands, and in 
Ontario over unoccupied lands. In Germany the 
State has attempted to take lands from Polish 
proprietors and turn them over to Germans. 
At first sight this appears to be a drastic measure. 
But the lands were taken only by recourse to the 
market. So far as I can find, no attempt has 



A STUDY OF PARALLELS 227 

been made — even in the white heat of the clash 
— to make violation of school regulations a means 
for confiscation. To give the Teutons their due, 
they have, in this matter, played the game accord- 
ing to the lav7S of civilisation; and if they have 
played into the hands of the Poles, well, it was im- 
possible to play otherwise, and preserve the funda- 
mental consideration of government, the security of 
title to property. As a matter of fact, the Poles 
have been paid exceedingly high prices for their 
holdings, amounting in some instances to fifty per 
cent, above market values, and the consideration 
received has been often used to purchase more 
lands, with the net result of more Poles on the 
land. But what was to be done? Confiscation as 
a penalty for violation of school regulations appar- 
ently did not occur to the German mind. 

Plainly the Teutonic practice of purchasing 
lands from the minority was commercially unfeas- 
ible for Ontario. The Germans replaced Slavonic 
farmers by Teutonic farmers ; while in Ontario, as 
we have seen, English-speaking farmers, so far from 
being willing to replace French-Canadian farm- 
ers, are by thousands giving up their land — some- 
times not waiting for a purchaser — and moving 
to city and town. But there were the King's 
lands in New Ontario. Over these English-speak- 
ing Canadians, possessing a majority in the Pro- 
vincial Legislature, were trustees. The Provincial 
machinery could be used to prevent French-speak- 
ing subjects of the King from preserving their 



228 THE CLASH 

lingual interests in this part of Canada. What did 
it matter that Canada's crying need was food, and 
more food? What did it matter that the Mother 
Country had cabled: Speed up farm production? 
What did it matter that Ontario had for many 
years vainly endeavoured to find colonists for these 
fertile, unplowed lands? All these considerations 
were submerged in the resolve that the King's 
subjects who spoke French and attended mass, 
should not secure a further footing on the King's 
lands in Ontario. Plainly the situation was extra- 
ordinary and could be met only by extraordinary 
measures. But the Government was not abashed; 
it went the full distance and required applicants 
for the King's lands to sign papers that they would 
obey unreservedly "all Provincial laws, statutes, 
rules, and regulations, of every character whatso- 
ever," on the understanding that failure to comply 
with any of these rules and regulations should 
"entail forfeiture without compensation" of "all 
rights and of any moneys paid on account of pur- 
chase of the land." 

A moment's reflection will serve to show the far- 
reaching importance of such action. Will the 
reader think for a moment of the vast amount of 
"Provincial laws, statutes, rules and regulations of 
every character whatsoever that may be in force 
from time to time," and say that there is not some- 
where in his hidden past — particularly if he own 
an automobile — a blemish which stands for a viola- 
tion of law or regulation that would under this 



A STUDY OF PARALLELS 229 

regulation have put his home in jeopardy? That 
the Government is aiming at violation of the school 
laws, and not its veterinary or automobile regula- 
tions, affects the principle only to make it worse. 
There is nothing that more readily saps respect for 
law than the existence of government regulations 
which it is not intended to enforce. That it may be 
intended to enforce the regulation only against 
French-Canadian violation of school regulations 
and not against that of English-Canadians — and 
statements to this effect are being freely made 
from the hustings — affects the principle only to 
make it more vicious. The foundation of loyalty is 
justice. The State expecting equal loyalty 
from all, and now demanding equal military 
service from all, ought to give justice equally to all. 
Equality is a "postulate of democracy." It will 
shock many to find subjects of the King of all 
Britain, seeking to settle in the King's wilderness, 
forced to contract themselves out of that right of 
justice which, since the early days of history, has 
been supposed to be inalienable to the white, red, 
yellow, brown, and black men who constitute the 
humanity of the British Empire. 

Men are being forced to swear away their rights 
to a common participation in the protection ac- 
corded property in the land of Ontario — and 
yet the press to which we might naturally 
have looked for a defence of justice, raises no 
outcry at its destruction. It is not the properties 
of its owners, nor the properties of its readers and 



230 THE CLASH 

advertisers that are being deprived of the protec- 
tion of the Courts. So far from condemning On- 
tario's action, the English press of the Province has 
defended it as a fitting punishment upon men and 
women who resolutely struggle for the preserva- 
tion of their fathers' tongue in a land discovered 
and explored and made safe for civilisation by their 
fathers. The defence, as was to be expected, is 
halting and lame, attempting to conceal and 
smother the intent with verbiage, rather than 
justify it, as will be seen by the following words 
of the (March 15, 1918) "Toronto Star": "The 
order does not mention this celebrated document. 
It binds the intending settler to obey the military 
service laws and also all Provincial laws, statutes, 
rules, and regulations of every character whatso- 
ever that may be in force from time to time. Of 
course this included Regulation 17," continues 
"The Star" ingenuously, "so long as it remains in 
force; but," adds "The Star" with a fine show of 
generosity, "it does not stand in the way of any 
attempt to modify it by the usual constitutional 
methods. It may be taken for granted, however, 
that the effective teaching of English in all schools 
is the permanent policy of Ontario." 

Surely no further evidence is required for con- 
demnation of the land regulation than these words 
written in its defence. The express object of the 
order authorising the government to confiscate the 
homes of pioneers is to strengthen the hands of the 
English-Canadians in the national clash over the 



A STUDY OF PARALLELS 231 

language of the schools. No one had suggested 
that the "order" had converted or could convert 
Regulation 17 into an unchangeable Medean law. 
Surely, having abandoned justice, we should not 
surrender the courage of manhood by attempting 
to conceal our course in evasiveness. Turn and 
twist as we may, we cannot escape the plain truth 
that, as Lord Acton has said, "the great political 
idea sanctifying freedom and consecrating it to 
God, teaching men to treasure the liberties of 
others as their own, and to defend them for the 
love of justice and charity, more than as a claim 
of right, has been the soul of what is great and 
good in the progress of the last two hundred years." 
Those who are guilty of destroying justice 
in Northern Ontario have habitually ascribed in- 
justice to others. With perfect reason they have 
defended the cause of struggling minorities in 
Germany, Austria, and Turkey; and have con- 
demned the harsh measures of majorities. Yet 
inconsistently enough the conflicts of nationality 
and race, disfiguring the Old World, have uncov- 
ered nowhere a majority more willing than that of 
Ontario to strike at a minority's sanctity of home. 
We have habitually boasted that no matter what 
others may do, British men fight fairly. We have 
talked of British "fair play" as a thing inherent in 
the souls of British men. The English-Canadians 
of Ontario may still talk of it, but they cannot boast 
of having incorporated it into their Provincial con- 
duct. It was Lord Chatham who said : "The poor- 



232 THE CLASH 

est man may in his cottage bid defiance to all the 
forces of the Crown. It may be frail ; its roof may 
shake, the winds may blow through it, the storm 
may enter, the rain may enter, but the King of 
England cannot enter." But the days of that boast 
are gone — at least on the King's lands in Northern 
Ontario. There, if British men — and British men 
may be born to speak French — violate even the 
least of the regulations laid down by the King's 
stewards, then the stewards (the representatives of 
English-Canadians) may, at their own ungoverned 
will, enter the home, the log houses and barns, the 
gardens and fields, and seize all that has been built 
thereon, throwing the pioneer and his family, 
homeless and despoiled into the wilderness. And 
the authority — as the "Globe" reminds us, "the 
English-speaking majority" are "twelve times as 
numerous as the French-speaking minority." To 
put the doctrine in Shakespeare's words : 

"Force should be right; or rather, right and wrong 

(Between whose endless jar justice resides) 

Should lose their names, and so should justice too. 

Then everything includes itself in power, 

Power into will, will into appetite ; 

And appetite, a universal wolf. 

So doubly seconded with will and power." 

The lifetime savings of the one may, at the will 
of the twelve, become the unearned property of the 
thirteen; such is the logical outcome of the 
Treitschkean doctrine of State omnipotence. It 
seems almost incredible that such things may be 
in a British country. 



A STUDY OF PARALLELS 2^U 

Prince von Biilow admits that after twenty yean 
of coercive effort there are no appreciable result* 
in the shape of more Teutonic Poles, but seeks to 
cheer up his Chauvinist following with the idea 
that eternity is a long while. In Canada the two 
nationalities, as a result of oppression in Ontario 
and Manitoba, are farther away than ever before 
from assimilation. To speak the French language is 
now regarded as a patriotic duty of those belonging 
to the French nationality. The French-Canadians 
have become embittered against the dominant 
nationality, and their bitterness is that of men who 
feel that they are the victims of oppression. Their 
attitude may be again best described in Dawson's 
words, written of the Poles : "The language griev- 
ance which lies at the root of all these charges, is 
one which falls upon the Poles" (and French-Ca- 
nadians) "with peculiar severity, because it is the 
grievance which is most universal, and which 
touches them in the most susceptible part of their 
being, wounding alike national, domestic and 
religious sentiment." 

Books of Reference; 

Gustave Le Bon, The Psychology of the Great War. 
Macmillan. 

W. H. Dawson, The Evolution of Modern Germany. 

C. B. Sissons, Bi-Lingual Schools in Canada. Dent. 

Prince Bernhard von Biilow, Imperial Germany. Cas- 
sel. 

Charles Sarolea, The Anglo-German Problem. Nelson. 



17 



CHAPTER XIII 

HOMOGENEITY AND SOMETHING BETTER 

Nationality is a mental condition, essentially a 
mystic force, none the less real for being intangible, 
but all the more difficult to understand and 
regulate. While there is a well-recognised differ- 
ence between collective psychology and individual 
psychology, much can be learned of the group by 
drawing upon our experience with individuals. If 
the reader has a neighbour whose outlook upon life 
differs from his own, he may understand, by per- 
sonal application, the wrong way and the right way 
of securing homogeneity. The reader, if he be 
physically stronger, might, under given circum- 
stances, compel his neighbour to work for him. In 
that way slavery was instituted, but the reader can- 
not, by the same means, compel his neighbour to 
think with him. It must be remembered that 
Alexander made slaves but could not make Hel- 
lenes. The reader may even compel his neighbour 
to say out loud that black is white, green or another 
colour, but the chances are that the neighbour will 
go on thinking that black is something else. We 
know that from the Turk's experience with the 
Armenians. Many a man has said "Great is Allah 
and Mohammed is His prophet", but down in his 
heart he has retained the conviction that Moham- 

234 



HOMOGENEITY 235 

mcd was an imposter. Physical force is more 
likely to strengthen than weaken a mental condi- 
tion. School regulations that are unacceptable to 
a national minority, have historically failed to 
destroy that which was forbidden ; have succeeded 
only in deepening the attachment to it. Nor is 
argument an infallible remedy for heterogeneity. 
We have seen that both Walloons and Flemings 
had very good arguments and yet failed to con- 
vince each other. What, then, is the secret remedy 
for heterogeneity? what the hope of those who, 
in a State with diverse nationalities, regard homo- 
geneity as the means of salvation? 

Modern philosophers in attempting to analyse 
nationality, appear to have forgotten Thomas 
Buckle— he has been dead for more than fifty 
years—or, remembering, have omitted to credit 
him with a valuable contribution to the subject, 
a work produced many years ago, but still stand- 
mg the criticism of the times. Mr. Buckle was 
the Conan Doyle of his day. Given the conditions 
under which men lived, he could tell you, without 
personal inspection, what sort of men they were- 
and more than that, what sort of men they would 
be in the course of ages. Sherlock Holmes, the 
masterful creation of Sir Conan Doyle, was only 
a child in inductive power beside Buckle. "Bat- 
tles, kings, law-makers, writers, and founders of 
religion," were the natural products of conditions 
which are to be found in the influence of Nature on 
man, and man on Nature. Here is the lay of his 



236 THE CLASH 

philosophy, the key with which he solves the rid- 
dles of nationality. "If we inquire what those 
physical agents are by which the human race is 
most powerfully influenced, we shall find that they 
may be classed under four heads : namely, Climate, 
Food, Soil, and the General Aspects of Nature; by 
which last I mean those appearances which, though 
presented chiefly to the sight, have, through the 
medium of that or other sense, directed the associa- 
tion of ideas, and hence in different countries have 
given rise to different habits of national thought." 
Although the inhabitants of North France and 
England are first cousins, yet, separated by a nar- 
row channel of water, within sight of each other, 
one people living on an island and the other 
on a continent, differences in "climate, food, soil, 
and the general aspects of Nature," left marks on 
the two peoples ; led them into different courses of 
art, politics and industry — into different habits of 
national thought. For us these facts have this im- 
portance : the descendants of the two peoples have 
been set down side by side on the North American 
Continent, both subject to the same physical con- 
ditions of Nature, and both will eventually have the 
same habit of national thought — if Buckle is right. 
There will develop a new nationality, and it will 
be neither French nor English; it will be Cana- 
dian. The Englishman fondly imagines that he 
can remain an Englishman in Canada, he and his 
children. But they cannot, according to Buckle, 
for they are no longer subject to the influence of 



HOMOGENEITY 237 

the "climate" (its rains and its fogs, for instance), 
"the food, soil, and the general aspects of Nature" 
of the British Isles; by the inexorable law of 
Nature they must become eventually different 
human beings. The French-Canadian for years 
imagined himself nationally French. Many of his 
neighbours thought the same, and saw in the dis- 
play of the tri-colour an evidence of the nationality 
of France. Perhaps neither nationality fully 
realised that the French-Canadian had ceased to 
be French until the Great War. It is true that 
he retains many of the characteristics of French 
nationality, but three hundred years have left the 
foundation of a new nationality which he himself 
has called Canadian. 

All Canada is north of the 42nd parallel of lati- 
tude and subject to extreme heat in summer and 
extreme cold in winter. Quebec houses most of 
the French-Canadians, although every seventh 
family in Quebec is of English, Irish, Scotch, 
Welsh, or Jewish descent; Ontario houses most 
of the English-speaking Canadians, although every 
twelfth family in Ontario is of French descent. 
Taking these two provinces for investigation, it 
will be found that their average climatic condi- 
tions are not appreciably different, except in the 
severest winter months. Too often do we forget 
that Port Arthur and North Bay are in Ontario, 
when we compare Ontario's climate with that of 
Quebec. The comparison is usually between 
Toronto and Montreal. 



238 THE CLASH 

While settlement in Canada is practically on 
latitudinal lines, settlement in the United States is 
longitudinal as well. One half of the United States 
is in the wheat-belt and the other half is in the cot- 
ton-belt; and at one time, if not now, the men south 
of the Mason and Dixon line believed that slavery 
was an economic necessity, socially desirable, and 
morally defensible. Yet the men north of the line 
were as fully convinced that slavery was an eco- 
nomic mistake and horrible immorality. Both 
sides doggedly maintained their points of view, 
and finally fell to fighting. The wide difference in 
their views can only be accounted for by the effects 
of climate on character. There is to-day a differ- 
ence between the man from Alabama and the man 
from Maine. In fact, as we arc reminded by Ed- 
win S. Corwin, there were men, who, at the time 
of the Confederation of the United States, would 
willingly have abandoned to Spain the territory 
now included within several of the Southern States 
on the ground that "the virtues required by a 
republic were to be had only in a hardy climate." 
Gouverneur Morris of New York was of the opin- 
ion "that to hand over the navigation of the Missis- 
sippi to Spain from the mouth of the Ohio would 
be accordant with the best interests of the United 
States, inasmuch as it was the only measure cal- 
culated to keep the growing population between 
the Ohio, the St. Lawrence, and the Mississippi de- 
pendent on the republic." To-day the men of 
the South, as a result of war — that direct or indirect 



HOMOGENEITY M9 

effect of climate— are associated together in com- 
mon political action. There is still in the Federal 
politics of the United States a "solid south." 

The man on the street in Canada says that there 
is a solid Quebec in the politics of Canada. So 
there is to-day, but the conditions of to-day arc 
not normal. Let us find out how far he has been 
wrong in saying it for years, for he is seldom 
right. The Conservatives had an average of 29 
supporters from Quebec in the twelve general 
elections following 1867; and, inasmuch as there 
are 65 members elected, the Province came within 
31^ members— if a member be divisible— of dis- 
tributing its political opinions equally between the 
two parties. At the 1911 election, it will be re- 
membered, the Conservatives and Nationalists, 
working together, elected 27 supporters, and the 
Liberals 38 supporters in the Province of Que- 
bec. The evidence in the electoral or legislative 
records of the country shows that the French- and 
English-Canadians have fully coalesced in the 
political thought and organisation of Canada. 

Sir George Ross included in his interesting book, 
"Getting into Parliament and After," a page on 
the relations of English- and French-Canadians. 
With the exception of a vote upon a motion of Sir 
Mackenzie Bowell, in the House of Commons in 
1874 to expel Riel from Parliament, Sir George 
found that: "The severest critic cannot show that 
on any question on which Parliament has given a 
decision since Confederation, he has acted under 



240 THE CLASH 

lcs3 generous motives or with a narrower view of 
the interests of Canada than have his English- 
speaking fellow-subjects. Even where religious 
questions were involved, as in the Jesuit Estates 
Bill, the Remedial Bill of 1896 and the granting of 
a Constitution to Alberta in 1905, his vote was 
divided, as was the vote of the English-speaking 
representatives." 

From spring until autumn, the industrial activi- 
ties of Canada are in full blast; there is work for 
everyone, and employment for all the country's 
capital — save in the occasional years of depression. 
The farmers, manufacturers, bankers, financiers, 
artisans, railwaymen, everyone who has a place in 
the country's life, are fully employed, but when the 
winter comes there is a f alling-off of activities. The 
great building trade comes to an end; the lakes 
and waterways are closed to navigation ; the agra- 
rian activities are confined indoors. Lumbering is 
shifted from the mills to the woods. There are few 
activities which do not feel the change; the many 
are influenced by it and the work and trade of the 
country is sharply directed into seasonal move- 
ments. We have seen that, generally speaking, the 
French-Canadian is fonder of staying on the land 
than the English-Canadian, but after all that is 
only a tendency; in course of time the inexorable 
levelling process will run its course and the two, 
English and French, will alike be disposed to field 
and factory — if Buckle is right. 

The winter tie-up vitally affects the intellectual 



HOMOGENEITY 241 

life of Canadians — English and French — directing 
it as well as material things into common seasonal 
movements. The lessening of the work on the farm 
enables the children to continue their school train- 
ing longer than is usual in rural countries, and the 
farm holds or controls the movements of more than 
one-half of Canada's population. As a result, 
although there may be few of great learning, there 
are few of great ignorance in Canada. The win- 
ter-bound months afford a well recognised oppor- 
tunity for reading, meditation, and discussion. The 
politician looks upon the early spring as the birth 
season of political and social opinion; Nature, 
while apparently inactive under ice and snow, is 
in reality renewing her fertility; and mankind, in 
comparative physical rest, takes a new hold upon 
things intellectual, or relaxes in pleasure. The 
winter is the season of stock-taking. The merchant 
counts his goods; the farmer sums up last season's 
results and lays out his plans for the coming year; 
the artisan formulates his demands for the May- 
day scale of wages and terms of employment. 

Thus climate is a great levelling influence upon 
Canadian character! 

The social life of a people is vitally influenced by 
the comparative density of population and the 
means for intercourse. Quebec has only 5.69 peo- 
ple to the square mile; Ontario has 9.67 people to 
the square mile. In both Provinces there are 
frontier men living apart, in communities practi- 
cally unorganised ; even in the old settled districts, 



242 THE CLASH 

by reason of the bad highways, communication is 
limited, when compared with better settled coun- 
tries. Road improvement is on the way both in 
Quebec and Ontario, but it will be many years 
before it is possible to have the intimate social life 
of Old England. Quebec has a greater percentage 
of rural population than Ontario, 51.56 per cent, 
of its people being classed as rural, as against 47 . 35 
per cent, in Ontario. The significance of these fig- 
ures towards homogeneity becomes plain when we 
remember that there are 670 people to the square 
mile in the United Kingdom and only 22 per cent, 
of its population is rural. 

We have found difference in the aptitude of each 
nationality for trade, and yet both are engaged in 
trade. The French-Canadians are by no means 
exclusively farmers; nor are the English-Cana- 
dians exclusively townsmen. In agriculture both 
nationalities conform pretty much to the same 
practices ; they are not separated by the wide gulf 
that often divides men in intensive and extensive 
agriculture. Both are mainly freeholders, own- 
ing land in equal amounts and of practically 
equal values. Contrast this position with that of 
Cousin Hodge in England, who is almost invar- 
iably a tenant. Fortunately for those who abhor 
heterogeneity, the economic interests of the two 
nationalities are practically identical. 

We seldom pause to think how near the two 
stock nationalities are to each other; we emphasise 
too often only the differences. It is between West- 



HOMOGENEITY 243 

ern Canada (Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Al- 
berta) and Eastern Canada (Ontario, Quebec and 
the Maritime Provinces) that lie the real dif- 
ferences in Climate, Food, Soil, and the General 
Aspect of Nature which "gave rise to different 
habits of national thought." It is here, in course 
of time, that Canadians must face the real problem 
in heterogeneity — if Mr. Buckle is right. Let 
those laugh who will at this prediction; they are 
thinking of to-day, not of to-morrow. 

The men who speak French have been in this 
country, subject to Buckle's influence of "its clim- 
ate, its soil, its food, and its aspects of Nature" for 
several hundred years. "The French-Canadian 
loves this land because he has taken root in it," 
writes C. W. Colby, of McGill. "He feels that 
his ancestors fought the savage and tamed the 
wilderness, without much help from outside. His 
face is not set toward France, nor, so far as I can 
make out, is it set toward Europe at all — save in 
matters of religion. Mme. Hebert, the wife of the 
first genuine colonist, declined to take her children 
back to France when Quebec fell before the Eng- 
lish in 1629. She had fixed her fortunes in the 
New World and meant to remain. There is 
something symbolical in this." 

Some day men who speak English in Canada 
will feel much the same way — if Buckle is right. 
We often forget that Canadians who speak English 
are comparatively such recent comers. From the 
statistics of population it is fair to assume that the 



244 THE CLASH 

average English-speaking Canadian family has 
been in Canada for not more than two generations; 
and yet, within this short time, the change from 
English to Canadian is apparent. The Canadian 
may be taken for an American on the streets of 
London, but rarely for an Englishman. Nor is it 
merely the tone of voice, the inflexion of words, and 
the cut of clothes, although these things count in 
making the distinction; there is already an appar- 
ent organic difference between the men of British 
North America and the men of the United King- 
dom. 

If I import sheep from Shropshire for my On- 
tario farm, I must not expect to clip real Shrop- 
shire wool for more than a limited number of 
years. I may call it "Shrop," to distinguish it 
from other wools of the country, but it will, 
in course of time, become unlike that which clothes 
the sheep that mow the grass on England's Welsh 
border county. The story of the influence of cli- 
mate, of soil, and of food, is told in the changing 
texture of the wool. The General Aspect of Nature 
may not affect the sheep ; but we know that birds 
and animals are vitally affected by what they see 
in their surroundings; and so are men. Even on a 
little island like Corsica, my friend M. L. San- 
tini, tells me there is a race difference between 
hillsmen and plainsmen. The two nationalities in 
this country have been spared Nature's obstacle to 
homogeneity, which works with the others for 
change in mankind. 



HOMOGENEITY 245 

Some years ago, when a meeting of the British 
Association for the Advancement of Science had 
brought literary and scientific "lions" from the 
United Kingdom to this country, one of them was 
my guest. He had spent some previous weeks in 
investigating Canadian conditions, and, naturally, 
I was interested in his conclusions. "Are we pro- 
ducing a distinctive race type in Canada?" I asked. 
"Certainly," he replied. "It is quite evident; and 
will be more apparent as the years go by." "It is 
true of the French-Canadian, but is it true of the 
Canadian who speaks English?" I asked. "Just 
as true of the English-Canadian as of the French- 
Canadian," was his reply. "You must remember 
that the French-Canadian was here several cen- 
turies before the English-Canadian. The very 
hills and streams make a people what they are. 
English are no more immune than French from 
the influence of environment upon character. 
Homogeneity is inevitable — in time." He had 
been reading Buckle. 

Canadians of both nationalities have affection for 
the land of Canada, and that love is patriotism. It 
is the same soil, the same hills, lakes, and rivers, 
which the one loves in French and the other in 
English — the same patriotism. A common love, 
has ever led men into common paths. As time goes 
on, there will be a clearer distinction between 
love for the country of origin, and love for the 
home country — both equally admirable in their 
way. Ages will remove the memory of the hedge- 



246 THE CLASH 

row8 of Old England — regret the inevitable if you 
will — and change the affection for English soil into 
an admiration for the sterling qualities of the Eng- 
lish people, and a deeply set respect for their ad- 
ministration of Empire. 

The length of the course towards homogeneity 
will depend entirely upon the man-made obstacles 
placed in Nature's way. If the reader be sincerely 
desirous of speeding Nature on her course; if he be 
anxious to have his neighbour work with him, think 
with him, he will surely realise that the surest way, 
and perhaps the only way, is to have his neighbour 
like him. If he wants men to accept his way of 
thinking about things, then that way must be made 
attractive. Experience has taught us that as in- 
dividuals, and experience has taught us that as a 
nationality. Shakespeare did more than any other 
man to bring Scot and Englishman into approxi- 
mate homogeneity; and Burns did his part, for 
while he intensified the national spirit of the Scot 
he made the Scot less "unspeakable" to the Eng- 
lishman. Out of such influences came the will of 
both Scot and Englishman to work and think to- 
gether. 

And yet homogeneity in the United Kingdom is 
only approximate. There are still Scots and Eng- 
lishmen and Welshmen, and Irishmen; and, per- 
sonally, I hope there always will be. For homo- 
geneity is a false god, an unlovely idol that is none 
the stronger or more durable for having a con- 
gruity of parts. And, personally, I hope there will 



HOMOGENEITY 247 

always be English-Canadians and French-Cana- 
dians. Each has a service to perform which the 
other cannot do ; and the State machinery is capable 
of being directed in preserving and developing that 
individual capacity for service, that culture to 
which the "old inhabitants" cling, as well as the 
culture of the "new inhabitants," and still leave a 
reserve power sufficient to care for the more limited 
culture and lesser capacity of the easily forgotten 
"aborigines." Personally, I am not any more 
anxious to force my mind upon my neighbour than 
to have him force his mind upon me. It has been 
my good fortune to know both John R. Robinson 
of the "Telegram" and M. Henri Bourassa of "Le 
Devoir" — outstanding figures in the Canadian 
clash. Much alike in several respects, by reason 
of differences, they are each capable, under a truce 
to the national feud, of carrying separate offerings 
to their common country. I would not for any- 
thing have Robinson made over into a Catholic- 
French-Canadian, nor have Bourassa made over 
into a Presbyterian- Scotch-Canadian. That would 
mean loss to the State, not gain ; and an inestimable 
loss, if it were followed by conversion of their 
compatriots and co-religionists. The United King- 
dom is the stronger for its measure of hetero- 
geneity; Canada likewise is stronger. We must 
not forget that granite is not homogeneous, and yet, 
according to the man who makes the dictionary, it 
has strength, durability, and "takes a high polish," 
three very desirable elements in a State, particu- 



248 THE CLASH 

larly the "polish." I cordially subscribe to the 
statement of Dr. Sarolea that "We believe in 
nationality, not because any one nation has monop- 
olised all the virtues, but because no nationality 
can possibly monopolise or has monopolised all 
the virtues ; because each nation has only received 
certain specific gifts; and because other nations 
and other conditions are required to develop other 
gifts w^hich may be equally important." Canada 
is not unfortunate in possessing men and w^omen 
determined to hold fast in the New World to the 
two cultures of the Old that have done most for 
civilisation. 

Some day Dame Nature will have ironed out 
our kinks, and we shall be regarded as men indig- 
enous to the climate, soil, food, and general aspects 
of Nature of the country in which we live — if 
Buckle is right. Some day we shall have the same 
habit of national thought — if Buckle be right. Let 
us then draw the fires of the man-made crucible, 
and let Nature do her work in the "natural" way. 
But until that some day — and I do not look for- 
ward to it with the pleasure of anticipation — let us 
have an English-Canadian nationality, and a 
French-Canadian nationality, and a Canadian na- 
tionality. Three nationalities and still one nation- 
ality; although apart, we shall still be together. 
We shall not be homogeneous, but, better still, we 
may be harmonious in diversity. 



HOMOGENEITY 249 

Books of Reference 

Henry Thomas Buckle, History of Civilisation in Bng- 
land. Hearst. 

Edward S. Corwin, The French Policy and the Ameri- 
can Alliance. Princeton University Press. 

Sir George W. Ross, Getting into Parliament and After. 
Briggs. 

C. W. Colby, Canadian Types of the Old Regime. Holt. 

Charles Sarolea, The Anglo-German Problem. Nel- 
son. 



18 



CHAPTER XIV 



TOLERANCE 



Mohammedans had an easy way of deciding 
the vexed questions of religion and nationality; 
with them the two were identical. "All true be- 
lievers are brothers," said they; and being anxious 
to increase the family relations, gave non-Moham- 
medans so many minutes to come into the family 
circle or get out of the world. Mohammedanism 
grew. Its growth, however, was largely due to its 
propagation in lands where men changed their 
religions as did the Vicar of Bray — with the gov- 
ernment. But there is this to be said for Moham- 
medanism: when you are in, you are in; and that 
cannot be said for Christianity : for when you are 
in, you are usually out unless the neighbours are of 
your particular cult. 

Less than one-third of the world, according to 
Dr. Jordan, an authority on comparative religions, 
is Christian; and that third is a seething mass of 
suspicion and conflict — and of the two, open con- 
flict is in some ways preferable. Five-sixths of 
King George's subjects— again according to Jordan 
— deny the inspiration of the Christian teachings, 
and live in greater harmony than do the one- 
sixth that profess to regulate their lives by those 
teachings. Just why men believing in the birth, 

250 



TOLERANCE 251 

life, and death of Jesus and the precepts of the 
"Sermon on the Mount," should be so intolerant, 
has never been satisfactorily explained; and with 
an explanation we are not now concerned. 

It is the effect of those differences on Canadian 
nationality with which we are alone concerned — a 
subject upon which a layman writes only after he 
has surrendered all hope of living at peace with his 
neighbours. According to the last census returns, 
40 out of every 100 Canadians are Roman Cath- 
olics; the 60 are mainly members of the various 
Protestant Churches. There are pagans in Canada, 
white and red; there are Mormons half-openly 
avowing a belief in polygamy; Jews denying the 
Divinity of Jesus; Doukhobors denying all author- 
ity of the State; Confucianists, Buddhists, and 
Hindus; but the main conflict is within the 
Christian Church, between Protestants and Roman 
Catholics, who, in the last analysis, believe in the 
same fundamentals of religion, and whose social 
life is practically identical. 

The French-Canadians, practically all Roman 
Catholics, constitute twenty-eight per cent, of the 
country's population, leaving twelve per cent, as 
non-French Roman Catholics. National lines in 
Canada do not entirely follow religious lines, for 
many of the English-speaking Catholics are bit- 
terly opposed to French nationality. In fact, upon 
Bishop Fallon, an Irish Catholic cleric, rests much 
of the responsibility for the present crusade against 
French-Canadian pretensions. Notwithstanding 



252 THE CLASH 

this, most of the arguments advanced against the 
French-Canadian claims have a religious bias. It 
is contended in the press of Ontario that Cardinal 
Begin and the hierarchy are keeping the French- 
Canadians ignorant of the English language to 
keep them Catholic. Is the converse then true? 
are the French-Canadians being forced to learn 
English in order that they may be converted to 
Protestantism? The one supposition is no more 
absurd than the other; but the truth is that a 
French priest is French, and an Irish priest, Irish! 
Buttoning a clerical collar every morning does not 
affect a man's nationality. 

Yet language has an effect upon religion. 
There is but one God : w^hatever their differences, 
English- and French-Canadians, Protestants and 
Catholics, agree upon that. But there is "God" 
and "le bon Dieu" — both the same, unless your 
children are forced to think of "le bon Dieu" as 
God, to make their prayers to God, instead of to 
"le bon Dieu" ; and that is the inevitable result of 
conversion in language. Then there comes a 
real living difference. All the adjectives which 
are applied to the Divine Being — loving, guiding, 
protecting, w^ith the mental pictures and associa- 
tions v^^hich they imply — all are changed; and 
w^hen the change is made by force, even to the 
wisest and most scholarly it seems vital. To the 
less wise and less scholarly, to the average man and 
woman, it is a loss of the best friend; to the race, 
it is a calamity. 



TOLERANCE 253 

The feeling against the French in Canada, in 
certain sections of the country, is based upon the 
belief that they belong to an intolerant Church. 
But intolerance is not the exclusive property of 
any Church. There are few Churches which in 
the past have not been guilty of intolerance. 
There are men who are antagonistic to the 
French-Canadians because they belong to a Church 
which they suppose to be disloyal to the British 
Crown. But disloyalty is not the property of any 
Church; it is an attribute of a people repressed, 
and may become that of a Church only if it be- 
lieves itself to be the victim of persecution. 

I write feelingly upon this phase of the subject, 
for my family came to the New World in search 
of brotherly love. In the colonial days they landed 
on the shores of New England, and finding it a 
Protestant community, proceeded to make them- 
selves at home. Much to their surprise. Cotton 
Mather and his sect would have none of them, 
tied them with ropes to wagon-wheels, and then 
prodded the oxen. The Protestants of New Eng- 
land mutilated what was left of my ancestors and 
drove them from the country. 

There were men of their faith, according to a 
memorial transmitted by Edward Burroughs to 
King Charles II, who received 370 stripes from a 
whip with knotted cords ; "two unhappy wretches 
were cut to bits by 139 blows from pitched ropes; 
others were put neck and heels in irons or burnt 
deeply in hand"; some had their ears cut off by 



254 THE CLASH 

the hangman, while other free-born subjects of the 
King were "sold for bondmen and bondwomen to 
the Barbadoes, Virginia, or any of the English 
plantations." And these things were done in the 
name — not the professed spirit — of Puritanism in 
the New World only a few generations ago. 

Not that my forefathers were lacking in Prot- 
estantism! They protested against the Pope and 
all his priests — but they protested against the Prot- 
estant priests as well. Sorrowfully I must con- 
fess, they protested too much. Travelling their 
weary way to what is now New Jersey, they lived 
there until the days of the American Revolution; 
when, having protested most of all against war, 
they surrendered their principle of non-resistance 
and, with the unerring instinct of the family for 
unpopular causes, accepted militant loyalty to the 
British Crown. Immediately after the war they 
were imprisoned on Staten Island, and finally 
found a refuge in the land now called Ontario — 
which had remained British by the loyalty of the 
French-Canadians and the influence of the Roman 
Catholic Church. 

I have related so much of the history of my un- 
fortunate family, because a man's religious views 
are influenced largely by tradition, and for an- 
other reason: it will be seen from this story, in- 
significant as it is, that I have good reason for say- 
ing that the Roman Catholic Church did not, in 
the days of religious persecution, possess a monop- 
oly of intolerance ; and so far from being disloyal 



TOLERANCE 2IS 

to the British Crown in Canada, has been the re- 
verse. Of the fourteen colonies which Great Brit- 
ain had in America at the beginning of the last 
quarter of the eighteenth century, thirteen were 
English-speaking and Protestant; only one was 
French-speaking and Catholic, and only that one 
was loyal. It is set down in every history of the 
period that when the French-Canadians hesitated 
between Britain and America — they had been 
British only a short time — the Church threw its 
great weight on the side of Great Britain. It is 
true that this was done, not through a. mere unrea- 
soning sentiment, but because the Church relied 
upon the promise of its freedom that had been 
made at the Conquest. Reasoned loyalty is in- 
variably based upon a feeling of security in the 
things most prized. 

It is impossible to say what the attitude of the 
English-Canadian majority would be towards 
French nationality if the French were Protestant 
— for they are not Protestant. Certainly some of 
their opponents would withdraw from active op- 
position, and have publicly said so. "The Hamil- 
ton Times" thinks (September, 1912) that "If the 
French-Canadians were Protestants there would be 
no French question"; while the "St. Thomas 
Times" was (November 28, 1912) of the opinion 
that "The reason why Canada is opposed to the 
French language is merely a matter of religion. 
The majority in Canada has decided that they live 
in a Protestant country." It is ever a question of 



256 THE CLASH 

majority : might is right. Certain it is that the con- 
flict of nationalities has been intensified and embit- 
tered by the added conflict of religions. Religious 
intolerance is by some — and I confess myself of the 
number — regarded as the hot-bed from which 
spring forth our unf ragrant national dissensions. 

The average Ontario Protestant firmly believes 
that the French of Canada are priest-ridden, and 
with fraternal zeal would be his brothers' keeper. 
Not long ago I was travelling through the Province 
of Quebec with a friend who, pointing through the 
car window to a little French village that clustered 
around a massive grey-stone church, said : 

"There is a picture which illustrates the burdens 
imposed upon the people of Quebec by the Church 
of Rome." 

"Do you know Richmond Hill, just north of 
Toronto?" I asked; and he did. "About the same 
population," I suggested; and he agreed. "There 
are five churches at Richmond Hill," I continued, 
"with five separate costs for heating, lighting, and 
preaching. Which do you think pays the more 
for religion — the people of the village we have 
just passed, or the people of Richmond Hill?" 
Then we talked of other things. 

The average English-Canadian believes that the 
French priest takes a hand in politics, and perhaps 
he does. In 1896 there was more than a rumour 
that the Quebec hierarchy had declared in favour 
of the Tupper Government. In 1917 there were 
Protestant clergy who, from the pulpit, preached 



TOLERANCE 257 

the doctrine of eternal damnation for those who 
voted against the Union Government. The only 
difference that I can find between the incidents, 
is that in 1917, the Ontario laity accepted the 
dictation of their clergy, while in 1896 the Quebec 
laity refused the dictation of theirs. On both 
occasions the clergy believed that vital issues 
were at stake and directed their people accord- 
ingly. I am not protesting against clerical inter- 
ference in politics; I am only asking the reader 
to remember that interference in politics is not a 
practice peculiar to the Province of Quebec and 
the Roman Catholic Church. 

I refuse to believe that Sir Wilfred Laurier, Sir 
Lomer Gouin, Judge Marechal, Senator Belcourt, 
Senator Beaubien, the Hon. Thos. Chapais, Aime 
Geoffrion, Charles Wilson, and many other strong, 
able, French-Canadians that anybody can think of, 
are priest-ridden. They are admittedly com- 
petent to think for themselves in material matters ; 
it is absurd presumption to pretend that they are 
not equally competent to select for themselves a 
course in matters spiritual. After all, is not re- 
ligion "a phase of the whole struggle for existence." 

It is difficult — oh, so difficult — for one man to 
understand another man's alien religion. He looks 
through his own stained windows into the stained 
windows of the other man, and believes that what 
he sees is the other man's religion ; but in reality he 
has only a distorted concept of colouring. If he be 
a Catholic and wants to know what the Protes- 



258 THE CLASH 

tants believe he calls upon Archbishop McNeil, 
and if he be a Protestant and wants information of 
the Roman Catholic faith he raps at the door of 
Archdeacon Cody. But scholars in comparative 
religions as they are, neither of them has the sym- 
pathetic understanding of the other's belief. As 
a result of this method of obtaining second-hand 
religious information, neither religious party ever 
really understands the other; and, misunderstand- 
ing, each proceeds to criticise the other. The 
harmony of the v^orld vs^ould be immeasurably 
improved if men w^ere to accept the spirit ex- 
pressed by the Catholic historian. Lord Acton, 
when he wrote to Mary Gladstone : "I scarcely ven- 
ture to make points against the religion of other 
people, from a curious experience that they have 
more to say than I know, and from a sense that it 
is safer to reserve censure for one's own, which one 
understands more intimately." 

We cannot all think alike in religion, for the 
simple reason that we are not all alike. That 
which helps one most may not help another as well 
as something else. If religion means harmony 
with the Infinite, then the Churches, after all, are 
but vehicles to carry men to a realisation of God, 
and an understanding of His will. Likewise, na- 
tionalities are a means of carrying men to a fuller 
development of life. Once we accept that posi- 
tion, it naturally follows that we must have an 
intense conviction of the duty of toleration. Am 
I tolerant? becomes the question which each man 



TOLERANCE 259 

must put to himself — and answer. "Every man 
should let alone others' prejudices and examine his 
own," said John Locke. "Nobody is convinced of 
his by the accusation of another; he recriminates 
by the same rule and is clear." Bishop Creighton, 
in his little book on "Persecution and Tolerance," 
expresses the same thought — and it is the vital one 
— with the statement that while men realised the 
evil of intolerance, "there was the practical 
question, Who was to begin? If you were to toler- 
ate your neighbour and allow him to win a majority 
of one, would he tolerate you? Cromwell would 
'meddle with no man's conscience,' but he would 
not allow him 'to exercise the mass,' or to use the 
Anglican Liturgy. Tolerance was not the doctrine 
of any sect or party. It was not the product of 
superior enlightenments, still less of growing in- 
difference to religious questions. It was the result 
of social development; and it rests solely on the 
basis of empiricism. Practically we are tolerant 
because no harm comes of our being so." 

No harm from being tolerant! Think of these 
words, written by the celebrated Anglican bishop 
who delved most deeply into the history of 
intolerance; and then of the suffering, the awful 
pain that, since the dawn of history, has been 
following in the wake of intolerance. We have 
got beyond the cruelties of Tyburn trees, and 
the fires of Smithfields, and the tortures of the 
thumb-screw, but we have not got beyond inflicting 
pain by intolerance. There is suffering in the loss 



260 THE CLASH 

in one's native land of a mother's cultural tongue, 
and there is suffering in the intolerant spoken word, 
often the unconsciously intolerant word, which be- 
littles and sneers at that which others hold dear. 
There is "no harm" in tolerance and yet there are 
men who have twisted their minds into a belief 
that they are serving God, and King, and man- 
kind, by opposing nationalities and religions other 
than their own. 

Surely the standard of conduct which regulates 
our relations to Church and national groups should 
not be less high than that by which we regulate our 
relations to individuals. Yet there are men who, 
shrinking from the thought of self-excellence, 
become downright braggarts in speaking of 
the nationality or Church to which they belong; 
who, scorning to deride their fellowmen as in- 
dividuals, spending themselves in ferreting out the 
faults of an alien nationality and, colouring and 
magnifying them, publish them within range of 
their influence. Motive is, after all, a fundamental 
test of conduct. Do we honestly seek to 
benefit mankind when we criticise nation 
alities and religions other than our own, or 
do we rather find in it a delicious and seemingly 
respectable vent for our prejudices? 

I am told of a school in Quebec, where instruc- 
tors dilate upon the shortcomings of English- 
Canadians as revealed in history, and teach their 
pupils to regard the English-Canadians of to-day 
with distrust. I know a school in Ontario where 



TOLERANCE 261 

under the guise of solving Canada's national pro- 
blem, boys who someday will be called upon to 
shoulder a part of the country's administration, 
are being sedulously innoculated with what the 
masters believe to be a knowledge of the short- 
comings of French-Canadians. No matter the 
defence as to intention; the boys are coming out 
of that school having learned to distrust and de- 
spise their compatriots of the French tongue and 
the Catholic religion. 

How far have we progressed from perpetrating 
"the miserable and impudent falsehoods which a 
large class of English writers formerly directed 
against the morals and private character of the 
French." It was Henry Thomas Buckle, who 
wrote the words which I have quoted, and "these 
things," continued Buckle, "tended not a little to 
embitter the feelings then existing between the 
two first countries of Europe; irritating the Eng- 
lish against French vices, irritating the French 
against English calumnies." Buckle died in 1862, 
and yet lived late enough to think that "the pro- 
gress of improvement by bringing the two countries 
into close and intimate contact, has dissipated these 
foolish prejudices and taught each people to 
admire, and what is still more important, to re- 
spect each other, and the greater the contact the 
greater the respect." 

We in Canada are lingering behind in the pro- 
gress of toleration ; we are now where the English 



262 THE CLASH 

of England, and the French of France were in the 
era of chauvinism; we are each continuing to put 
the emphasis upon the other's failings rather than 
upon the other's virtues. And through our whole 
course of criticism runs the element of religious 
antagonism. 

There are five or six railways that carry between 
Buffalo and New York. In my opinion, one of 
them is best, and by it I always travel, yet each 
railway has its patrons and its partisans. Some- 
times there is a ,wreck; but, as a rule, all the travel- 
ers on all the roads reach New York — and now 
and then people get there by walking. It would be 
presumptions egoism for me to challenge the judg- 
ment of the sensible men and women who prefer a 
different way from the one I think "best." Perhaps, 
after all, my way may be only "best" for me. Of 
course, if I am an official of "the best railway," I 
may pardonably point out its advantages, may 
shout them from the housetops, paint them by 
brush and pen; but a sense of decency and the 
ethics of commerce will forbid my running down 
the other lines. Surely Church ethics should not 
be less generous. Churchmen may feel that the 
other ways lead to Helena, instead of to Gotham ; 
but they ought to stop and consider that there are 
men and women, whose judgment is ordinarily as 
good as their own, travelling by the other ways. 

I know no Church that has not men of deep 
spiritual character within its membership. I could 
not believe in a God, if men, surrendering them- 



TOLERANCE 263 

selves to Him with the soul's cry "Lead Thou Me 
On," following where they were led, are in a pres- 
ence which is not God's. No, we cannot all at- 
tain a realisation of spiritual truths by the same 
way, any more than we can all by the same way 
attain equal knowledge of things that are not spirit- 
ual. Nor can we all render the same service. 
May it not be that each Church, and each nation- 
ality, is complementing the services of the other; 
doing a something which the other cannot do. 

What is, and what ought to be in religion and 
nationality, was illustrated to me the other day by 
the conversation of two little girls whom I know. 
They had been discussing religion rather vigor- 
ously when the aggressor — a Protestant, by the way 
— said, "I hate your Church and you hate mine; 
and that's all there is to it." Grown-ups rarely say 
the thing so bluntly, but after all the Hymn of 
Hate is none the less unlovely for being concealed 
in the heart or expressed in redundant verbiage. 
"No," answered the Roman Catholic child, "I love 
my Church and you love yours; that's what there 
should be to it." Does not candour compel us to 
admit if Roman Catholics and Protestants, Eng- 
lish-Canadians and French-Canadians, were to 
accept that spirit each would be living in closer 
conformity to what is best in life. 

Religion is inextricably tied up in our national 
problem, and has been since "the late Definitive 
Treaty of Peace concluded at Paris 1763, to grant 
the liberty of the Catholick Religion to the in- 



264 THE CLASH 

habitants of Canada." This definite engage- 
ment, written into Britain's deed of possession, 
should not be lightly passed over in a study of the 
national problems of the country. At that time the 
United Kingdom itself had not full religious 
liberty, and it was the intention, as expressed in the 
debates over Canada's first constitution, that there 
should be "in some part of His Majesty's Dominion 
an asylum where Roman Catholics might go if 
persecuted." In the days of the Quebec Act Great 
Britain was only imbibing the spirit of toleration. 
The standard of religious toleration within the Em- 
pire was thus first planted by British men in Can- 
ada, and it must not be lowered by those who, under 
autonomy, have inherited their authority. 

It is true there are timid souls who honestly fail 
to realise that Roman Catholics, as well as others, 
have emerged from the Middle Ages; who have 
forgotten that Copernicus was opposed by Prot- 
estants as well as Roman Catholics; that Kepler 
had to give up the idea of being a Calvinist minister 
because his views on the planetary movements were 
not orthodox ; who have no confidence that freedom 
can exist in a state controlled by Roman Catholics. 
To them I commend these words of Charles Fox, 
taken from the Debates on the Quebec Bill: "No 
one has urged the circumstance of the people of 
Canada being Roman Catholics as an objection 
to an assembly, and I trust I shall never hear such 
an objection stated ; for no one who has ever con- 
versed with Roman Catholics can, I think, believe 



TOLERANCE 265 

that there is anything repugnant, in their views, to 
the principles of political freedom. The principles 
of political freedom, though not practised in 
Roman Catholic countries, are as much cherished 
and revered by the people, as in Protestant coun- 
tries." 

To-day there is, in the Province of Quebec, a 
State governed by the representatives of a people 
essentially Roman Catholic in spirit and numbers; 
and, as Fox prophesied, the Protestant minority 
does not have to plead in Quebec for freedom. The 
English-speaking Protestant press of the Province 
is practically a unit in declaring the impartiality 
of the French-Canadian Catholic administration. 
The English-speaking Protestant minority in Que- 
bec has been given practical autonomy in the ad- 
ministration of its educational afifairs, and yet its 
numbers are only slightly greater than those of 
the French-Catholic minority in Ontario and less 
than half the total Roman Catholic population of 
Ontario. Is it too much to expect as much im- 
partiality, as much national and religious tolera- 
tion from the English-speaking and Protestant 
Provinces of Confederation, which have, under 
the British North America Act, an authority no 
greater than that of Roman Catholic Quebec? 

Tolerance in religion and nationality does not 
imply the surrender of a man's love for his own. 
The English-Canadian and Protestant may stoutly 
cherish his own and at the same time encourage the 
culture and religion of the French-Canadian. As 

19 



266 THE CLASH 

Dr. Hobhouse well says, "We have to work toward 
peace through nationality and not against it." And 
he might have said the same of religion. For the 
principle is the same. "God has divided man into 
men that they might help each other," said that old 
heathen, Seneca. And he told a wholesome truth. 
Let each nationality respect the other; each help 
the other in preserving and improving that which 
each thinks is best in its own culture; and out of 
respect and sympathy must come, not homo- 
geneity, but that better something else in our na- 
tional life, in our religious life, in life generally — 
harmony in diversity. 

"It is the secret sympathy, 
The silver link, the silken tie. 
Which heart to heart and mind to mind, 
In body and in soul can bind." 



Books o-^ Rej'erence 

■Canada Year Book. King's Printer. 

Lord Acton, Letters to Mary Gladstone. 

M. Creighton, D.D,, Persecution & Tolerance. Long- 
mans. 

H. & E. Egerton and W. E. Grant, Canadian Constitu- 
tional Development. Musson. 

Max Nordau, The Interpretation of History. Hein- 
neman. 



CHAPTER XV 

FRENCH CANADA AND THE WAR 

Sometimes it is well to commence an investiga- 
tion with a few figures in mind, and before at- 
tempting to dissect French Canada's part in the 
Great War, we ought to know in what proportion 
the several elements within the country voluntarily 
contributed to the overseas forces of Canada. We 
will take our figures from an opponent of the 
French-Canadians, Dr. Edwards, a member rep- 
resenting an Ontario constituency in the Dominion 
House of Commons. From the floor of Parlia- 
ment, he said : "Out of a population 3,564,702 Eng- 
lish-speaking Canadians born in Canada, 125,245 
have proceeded overseas, or over three and one- 
half per cent. Out of a population of 813,714 Eng- 
lish-speaking people born outside of Canada, 155,- 
095 or 19 per cent., have answered the call of King 
and country." 

Clearly, as English-Canadians we ought not to 
go further without an explanation. We cannot very 
well throw stones at the French-Canadians while 
we are living in glass houses. If numbers con- 
tributed to overseas forces are to be the measure of 
loyalty, we English-Canadians are at the outset 
under a suspicion of comparative disloyalty, and 
are the last men who should prefer a similar charge 

267 



268 THE CLASH 

against our neighbors. And yet is not that what 
we have done? Are we not in the unenviable 
position of those who, having been caught red- 
handed in wrong, protest that someone is even 
more guilty? Since good and bad are de- 
termined by comparison, and English-Canadian 
enlistment was bad when placed beside that of the 
British-born, did we not seek to make it good 
by comparison with that of French Canada? There 
are men — myself among the number— who believe 
that English-Canadians are as loyal to Great Brit- 
ain as are Englishmen; and yet the numbers of 
English-Canadians enlisting are in comparison 
with the Englishmen of Canada — the Scots and 
Irish as well — woefully deficient. There are Eng- 
lish-Canadians who explain away their own short- 
comings in forty dififerent ways, without impugning 
English-Canadian loyalty, and then naively con- 
fess that French-Canadian failure to enlist is ex- 
plainable only by clerical dictation. We ought not 
to refuse to have others tried by the evidence with 
which we discharge ourselves. But let us deal with 
our own case first, and allow the French-Canadian 
case a few minutes' respite. 

A realisation of the necessity of fighting for free- 
dom in Europe came none too readily to any of us 
who were not of Europe. England was only thirty 
or forty miles away — within sounding distance of 
the guns — and it was months before Englishmen 
realised that the last pound of English energy and 
the last pound of English sterling had to be thrown 



FRENCH CANADA AND THE WAR 269 

into the cause. All that time — if we are to believe 
the London papers — the French people were ask- 
ing "When are the English coming?" The brave 
little army of English regulars fighting with in- 
credible valour, was swallowed up in the hordes of 
Frenchmen and Germans who swayed back and 
forth in indescribable slaughter — and was finally 
practically lost by extermination. There was a 
reason why England did not, at the outset, put her 
young men by the millions into the field. What we 
can do to-day largely depends upon what we have 
done yesterday. England had trained her people 
for peace and could not over-night fit the nation 
mentally and physically for war. Her hands 
were tied by the past. 

We Canadians, three thousand miles away, for 
weeks after the declaration of war, turned in our 
half-sleep and murmured, "It must have been a 
bad dream ; we shall surely awake in the morning to 
find there is no war." The Great War did not at 
first seem real; it did not seem possible; at least to 
those of us whose fathers' and fathers' fathers had 
been born and reared in the centre of the North 
American Continent. The thought-world is the 
real world, and few of us had thought of war in 
connection with ourselves. The stirring days of 
the seventeen seventies, were far away and indis- 
tinct; the invasion of 1812 was remembered best by 
the old-fashioned, picturesque uniforms of its 
participants ; while, 11 years later, the rebellion of 
1837 appeared little more than a good-sized elec- 



270 THE CLASH 

tion row. War did not seem to us a business with 
which we ourselves were connected. I am now 
expressing the sentiments of the native-born of 
English Canada, and I speak with a conviction 
born not merely of my own mind, but of the 
extent of the response of my compatriots. 

The call for overseas service in English Canada 
was first answered by the militia men. They, of 
all classes within the community, came nearest to 
understanding. They had, at least, thought of war 
and had pictured themselves in many a sham-battle 
as actually fighting, killing foes — and sometimes 
Germans — and defending homes and principles. 
The militia men, and men who in their youth had 
been militia men, shouldered the burden of raising 
the first contingents. It was they who pleaded with 
the men of substance for the funds with which to 
carry on recruiting. Just why it was necessary to 
secure by private subscription from ten to twenty 
thousand dollars for each battalion raised in 
Toronto and Montreal, just why field-kitchens and 
battalion-trucks had to be purchased out of private 
funds, I do not know. Nor is knowing material; 
that these things were, is material. None can tell 
how few English Canada would have contributed 
to overseas forces if it had not been for the arduous 
labours of the men who were, at the time or had 
once been, officers and privates in the militia. They 
were the foundation upon which our overseas con- 
tributions were built, — and it is hard to build with- 
out a foundation. 



FRENCH CANADA AND THE WAR 271 

Militia men paraded the streets with bugles and 
drums, raising the martial ardour of the people; 
they coaxed and scolded from street corners for 
recruits; canvassed for them from house to 
house, and factory to factory. And when it was 
all over — one half of Ontario's voluntary army was 
secured from one-eighth of Ontario's population — 
the British-born. 

Dr. Edwards estimated that only seven-tenths of 
one per cent, of the French-Canadian population 
had enlisted. Comparing this figure with his pre- 
viously quoted figures, it will be seen that the Brit- 
ish-born did six times as well as the English-Cana- 
dians, and the English-Canadians five times as well 
as the French-Canadians. That is Dr. Edward's 
computation of patriotism, based on voluntary en- 
listment in Canada. But are we as sure of Dr. 
Edward's figures comparing English-Canadian 
and French-Canadian enlistment, as we are of those 
comparing native-born and foreign-born? Volun- 
teers gave their places of birth, but did not submit 
their genealogies. Then by what method was the 
nationality of the native-born determined? Presum- 
ably by counting the French names on the enroll- 
ment lists — a procedure obviously open to criti- 
cism. If the reader had been asked to classify 
Private Wilson, would he have put him in the 
French list? I confess I should not have known 
what to do with him, for my Wilson acquaint- 
ances are about equally divided between the two 
nationalities. What about Corporal Pratte? 



272 THE CLASH 

Again I should have been in a quandary. I 
have a very good friend, born in England, 
novs^ living in Canada, w^ho answers to that 
name; and I know a full half-dozen more of 
the name who, born in Ontario, are exceedingly 
proud of being Catholic French-Canadians. There 
are at least two well known men in Canada by 
the name of Martin: one of them is a Presbyterian 
Scotch-Canadian and Premier of Saskatchewan; 
the other is a Catholic French-Canadian and 
Mayor of Montreal. It may be thought that the 
Christian names would keep the conscientious in- 
vestigator straight in his count — and we must as- 
sume that those who counted the list wanted to be 
impartial — but not so. Mayor Martin is the son 
of Solomon Martin, and only a man prejudiced in 
favour of the French-Canadians would have credit- 
ed a man by that name to their list. Surely we 
commonly think of George, Arthur, Paul, Ernest, 
Joseph, Charles, Edmond, Albert, Henry, Archie, 
Ferdinand, Simeon, David, Alfred, Oliver, and 
Frederic, as English Christian names, and yet I 
find that all were used years ago by French 
priests in christening boys who are Senators and 
Members of Commons to-day. I assume that the 
reader would not hesitate to place a Canadian-born 
Peter Brown on the English-Canadian side of the 
house. And yet the Captain Peter Brown who won 
the military cross was educated by French priests at 
Mount St. Louis College, and believes himself to 
be a French-Canadian. There are scores of names 



FRENCH CANADA AND THE WAR 273 

such as Brown, Nelson, Wilson, Baker, Harwood, 
Eraser, Lindsay, Harvey, Scott, Otis, Barry, 
Martin, Daniel, Brien, Campbell, David, Miller, 
Richard, Raymond, Nichol and Thomas, borne by 
men whose nationality may be either English or 
French. 

I am not seeking to maintain that French-Cana- 
dians enlisted in proportion to English-Canadians. 
Whilst their enlistments were not as small as de- 
scribed, they were smaller than they would have 
been under normal conditions — and conditions 
were not normal. The French-Canadians, like the 
Englishmen and English-Canadians, were in- 
fluenced by the past. Max Nordau has said that 
"the multitude have no historical sense" ; they have 
"an incapacity to detect underlying connections or 
to trace back the causes and effects of phenomena," 
but I assume that the reader is not of the multitude 
and sincerely wants a. correlation of the facts which 
account for French-Canadian failure to respond 
generously to the call of freedom in Europe. 

There are some who maintain that the French- 
Canadians and the Roman Catholic church in 
Canada have been historically unwilling to support 
Great Britain. Even at the cost of digression we 
must, of necessity, dispose of that chronic charge 
by a survey of conditions when, on another oc- 
casion, British power was threatened in America. 

When the English-speaking British of America 
threw off their allegiance to the King of Great 
Britain, back in the seventeen-seventies, "no stone 



274 THE CLASH 

was left unturned, no means were left untried to 
induce the French to revolt," says the historian. 
''Inflammatory proclamations inciting to rebellion 
were issued from the printing presses of Boston and 
Philadelphia, and posted at dead of night by 
mysterious, unknown hands, on the doors of the 
Canadian churches. The agents of the republic 
infested every village along the St. Lawrence, al- 
ternately cajoling and threatening the inhabitants. 
Freedom and assistance were promised to those 
who threw off the yoke of slavery; and the sword 
of the avenger was denounced on the cowards who 
meekly submitted to the British tyrants at the 
critical tim.e when the rights of man were endan- 
gered and the friends of liberty in peril." 

At the outbreak of the revolution there were only 
about a thousand British regulars in Canada, and 
not a single armed vessel. Of the civilian popula- 
tion, only a few hundred were English-speaking 
and many of these we are told, were ''recalcitrant," 
by no means enthusiastic in the cause of Great Brit- 
ain; many of them having come from the disaf- 
fected colonies were more inclined to throw off 
than to hold on to British sovereignty. Except for 
the handful of British regulars and the few hun- 
dred half-loyal English, the inhabitants were 
French-Canadian; clearly, by numbers and train- 
ing the French-Canadians were masters of the 
situation. 

With the Quebec Act in operation only a few 
weeks, the people were not wholly convinced of 



FRENCH CANADA AND THE WAR 275 

the genuineness of its guarantees. So the response 
to the Governor's call for volunteers was not im- 
mediate. There was no bi-lingual question in those 
days, no one to dispute the right of self-expression 
of the French-Canadian nationality in the land 
east or west of the Ottawa River, but the "new 
subjects" wanted assurances for the future. 

There was also dissatisfaction because the in- 
habitants were not allowed to choose their own 
officers. Many of the seigneurs had returned to 
France after the country had been turned over to 
the British, and leadership fell largely upon the 
Church. Fortunately, the principal laymen and 
clergy of the colony believed that the assurances 
of the Quebec Act were something more than an 
expedient of the hour, and accepted them as an 
enduring pledge of the maintenance of French 
civil laws, of French customs, and of French cul- 
ture in Canada. The young men were rallied to 
the British standard in sufficient numbers to resist 
the invaders and preserve the colony for the Brit- 
ish. 

An attempt has been made to picture the Cana- 
dians of that day as unintelligent yokels, whose as- 
sistance was not of material service. But we know 
better. Francis Parkman has given us a graphic 
description of the country and its inhabitants at the 
close of the French Regime, only a few years 
before. It may be true that many French-Cana- 
dians of that period were unschooled, although 
New France was probably as far ahead in educa- 



276 THE CLASH 

tion as New England. Whatever the faults of 
French colonial government, its system had, at 
least, one advantage needful for the day. As Park- 
man tells us, "It favoured military efficiency. The 
Canadian population sprang in great part from 
soldiers, and was to the last sympathetically rein- 
forced by disbanded soldiers. Its chief occupation 
was a continual training for forest war; it had 
little or nothing to lose, and little to do but fight 
and range the woods." 

For many years the Canadians had successfully 
defended their country from the inroads of 
American colonists, who, it must be remembered, 
had the backing of the British Government; and 
had the Canadians been so minded at this critical 
period, without the shadow of doubt could have 
established their independence, or at least have 
thrown off British sovereignty. 

The outstanding fact of the period is that the 
French-Canadians elected, of their own free will, 
to remain British. 

Although France, in the Treaty of Alliance, con- 
cluded at Paris and ratified by Congress in 1779, 
expressly "forever renounced any part of the Con- 
tinent of North America which, before the Treaty 
of Paris in 1763, or in virtue of that treaty," be- 
longed to Britain, there was another course open 
by which her ancient colony might have been 
wrested from Great Britain and at the same time 
have been prevented from falling into the open 
arms of the United States. That plan lay in in- 



FRENCH CANADA AND THE WAR 277 

dependence under French protection. That was 
the plan of Vergennes, then the masterful direc- 
tor of French foreign policy. He hoped to expel 
the English and establish a free "agricultural and 
commercial state which should govern itself under 
the protection of France. In that way, he argued, 
the country would be peopled by the French 
themselves, and 'by any who choose to go there, 
and a national spirit, grounded on similarity of 
language, customs and national character, and 
kept alive by constant intercourse, would be 
created substantially identical with that of France 
herself." 

The plans of Vergennes were defeated by the 
stubborn loyalty of the French-Canadians to Brit- 
ain. 

There was also more than a suggestion of inde- 
pendence in the proclamation of Baron D'Estaing, 
Commander of the French fleet in American 
waters, calling upon the French-Canadians in the 
names of Levis and Montcalm, to assert themselves 
against the loosely-held British power. Further 
still, we are told that the three commissioners, Ben- 
jamin Franklin, Samuel Chase, and Charles Car- 
rol, appointed by Congress to win over the French- 
Canadians, finding that impossible, "tentatively 
suggested that Canada might retain an independent 
position in its relation to the rest of the states." 
Whether Canada would have become independent, 
or a State of the Union, if the French had listened 
favorably to these suggestions, will never be 



278 THE CLASH 

known; for, relying on the inviolability of a Brit- 
ish pledge of the right to self-expression, they re- 
mained true to Great Britain in the years when 
the Empire appeared to be crumbling to pieces. 

We, then, approach a consideration of the atti- 
tude of the French-Canadians of the year 1914, 
towards the Great European War and Britain's 
position in it, remembering that Canada is to-day- 
British because French-Canadians refused to have 
it something else. 

It will be remembered that a few years before, 
a bill had been submitted to the Canadian Parlia- 
ment providing for the creation of a Canadian 
navy. The proposal met with violent opposition 
from two sources : those who thought the measure 
went too far and those who thought it did not go 
far enough. There were English-Canadians in On- 
tario who ridiculed the idea of a Canadian navy; 
its ships were "tin pot" ; they would be useless in 
war and absurd in peace. The argument against 
the bill was the other way in Quebec. There a 
small group, calling themselves Nationalists, ac- 
cused the Government of designing to sell the coun- 
try to further Great Britain's greed for Imperial- 
ism. The Quebec opposition was not at first for- 
midable. It lacked the one thing needful in pol- 
itics. In these days political organisation is a 
considerable undertaking; it requires finance, and 
although M. Bourassa, its driving force, controlled 
a daily newspaper, his movement must have been 
confined within narrow limits without support of 



FRENCH CANADA AND THE WAR 279 

a practical and substantial nature. Curiously 
enough, that support was provided by a group of 
English-Canadians who, preaching Imperialism 
in Ontario, either found political consistency in 
supporting anti-Imperialism in Quebec, or did not 
mind inconsistency. Thus the propaganda of non- 
participation, through the coalition of Ontario gen- 
ius for finance and Quebec genius for oratory, was 
spread throughout French Canada. Eloquent ap- 
peals were made on behalf of pacifism ; harsh words 
were said of Great Britain; pathetic pictures were 
painted of hardships which participation in 
Britain's wars would bring to Canada. 

When the war came, in 1914, none of the af- 
fected countries had been prepared except Ger- 
many. There was neither armament preparedness 
nor mental preparedness — and both were desir- 
able; but if there had been no adequate campaigns 
for mental preparedness in the allied countries, 
there had been no deliberate campaign against it. 
There had been no systematic preaching of the gos- 
pel of pacifism — nowhere except in French Canada 
and Russia. But in the latter country the campaign 
was conducted in subterranean channels, and in the 
former in open air, supported by an alliance with 
one of the country's two great political parties. 

When party politics are involved, men lose their 
critical faculties. Wrongs become rights, and 
rights wrongs, while means are measured by their 
prospects of success. We have habitually damned 
a certain clerical organisation with the odium of 



280 THE CLASH 

believing that "the end justifies the means" ; but in 
truth the maxim properly belongs to the realm of 
party politics. "The Veteran," the official organ 
of the Great War Veterans' Association, says that 
they were "Conservative Imperialists w^ho sub- 
sidised M. Bourassa and his friends to confer upon 
the population of Quebec the benefit of a pro- 
longed education against participation in the wars 
of Great Britain." But — with partisan merits and 
partisan demerits, we are not concerned; and, re- 
membering them, emphasising them, we shall 
serve no good purpose and may destroy our essen- 
tial perspective of the true business in hand — the 
clash of nationalities in Canada, and its underlying 
forces. They were English-Canadians who, in 
1911, backing a non-participation campaign' in 
French Canada, a few years later, bitterly 
blamed French Canada for its success. That is the 
point to remember. 

It is unjust to blame the French- Canadians for 
having accepted, in such numbers, the teachings of 
non-participation, for it must be remembered that 
after the campaign of 1911, men who derided the 
idea of Canada assisting Great Britain were chosen 
His Majesty's advisers. They became M. le Min-- 
istre This and M. le Ministre That. How can the 
men on the side-lines of Quebec be blamed for 
thinking that the people of Canada generally be- 
lieved what, as political leaders, these minis- 
ters had preached so recently from the hustings 
in Quebec: that pacifism was righteousness, and 



FRENCH CANADA AND THE WAR 281 

Canada ought not to take part in overseas' war- 
fare in Britain's behalf. Under our system 
of government, men are supposed to be selected 
as Cabinet Ministers because their political views 
are agreeable to the majority. 

Let me repeat : the outbreak of the war found no 
section of the world deliberately educated against 
war — except French Canada and Russia. 

The French-Canadian Ministers, in the course 
of time, retracted what they had said as politicians 
seeking the confidence of the people. But the 
retraction was not preached as energetically, as 
forcefully, as eloquently, as extensively, as the 
original doctrine. Indeed, a number of years 
passed before many of the converts knew there had 
been a change of heart in their former teachers. 
Even had the recantation been spread broadcast, 
it is still doubtful what the result would have been, 
for men cannot be pushed that way to-day and 
pulled back to-morrow. But we must pass on to 
another phase of the complicated situation. 

At first the Canadian armies were recruited sole- 
ly by voluntary enlistment. In English Canada ap- 
peals for recruits were made in the name of free- 
dom. It is true, as we have seen, no clear explana- 
tion was given of the nature of the freedom in- 
volved in the war; little or no attempt was made 
to define freedom; English Canada was not partic- 
ularly interested in definitions and details. Brit- 
ain was at war; that was enough for many. Even 
those who refused to enlist were ready to ad- 

20 



282 THE CLASH 

mit the virtue of the cause. But French Canada 
was critical. The word freedom had a particular 
meaning for French-Canadians, for were they not 
even then struggling to protect a freedom of self- 
expression they had once exercised in Ontario 
and Manitoba, in a land that had belonged to 
their forefathers. Whether the exercise had been 
by privilege or right, does not, for our present pur- 
pose, matter ; there had been exercise and there had 
been deprivation ; that is what we must remember 
if we would understand the mental attitude of the 
French-Canadians. It was then being commonly 
asserted that French-Canadian nationality had 
freedom for self-expression only in that part of the 
land acquired at the Conquest, marked off by the 
boundaries of Quebec. Under that doctrine there 
were "English-Canadian Provinces" and a 
"French-Canadian Province." Hence French- 
Canadianism was forced to become provincialism. 
The recruiting agent could not very well declaim 
in French Canada of Britain's indelible adherence 
to freedom; could not point out that nowhere with- 
in the British Empire had culture been denied 
freedom in a country acquired under conquest; 
nowhere within the British Empire had a minority 
insisting upon maintaining its national self-expres- 
sion, been forced into an alien mould, nowhere — 
except in Ontario and Manitoba. It was the ex- 
ceptions in which French Canada was concerned. 
Admirable is the British spirit of freedom, would 
have been the reply, but is it not in that spirit that 



FRENCH CANADA AND THE WAR 283 

the "national" affairs of Canada should be adminis- 
tered ? 

"If she be not fair to me, 
What care I how fair she be?" 

It was almost equally hopeless to attempt dis- 
tinction between what Britain had done and what 
Ontario and Manitoba were then doing. The 
French-Canadians would probably have admitted 
that so long as Britain exercised direct control over 
Canada, their national interests had been respected 
and preserved in all the land acquired under the 
Treaty of Paris, and that only with the coming of 
responsible government under English-Canadian 
domination, had they been curtailed. But that argu- 
ment and that admission would not have helped 
matters, for the French-Canadians would have an- 
swered : this is a British country which ought to be 
administered in accordance with British principles. 
And the answer seems to be unanswerable. 

The war emphasised the necessity of unity. That 
was its first outstanding lesson. But neither On- 
tario nor Manitoba held out an olive branch to the 
French-Canadians; neither Province abated one 
whit its demand for the limited use of the French 
language in the schools„ The press of Toronto, so 
far from seeking a via media out of the difficulties, 
continued to launch attacks against the French- 
Canadians with vitriolic appeals to race and reli- 
gious passion. The gravity of war failed to temper 
its course. For fear the reader may think I am us- 
ing stronger words than necessary to describe the 



284 THE CLASH 

all-important action of the Ontario press during 
those trying, difficult, first months of the war, let 
me give an illustration. On June 20, 1916, the 
"Toronto News," then edited by Sir John Willison, 
stated that "some of the clergy boasted that they 
would compel Ontario by force of arms to submit 
to Quebec's demand for enthronement of French in 
this Province." At the time, men's nerves were 
painfully raw, yet the "News," edited by a direc- 
tor of public thought in the community, cried 
"Civil War." 

Let us pause for a moment, even at the cost of 
another partial digression, to analyse the form and 
results of this call to arms. The Dominion of 
Canada was armed as never before; great machine 
shops were turning out ammunition, mainly under 
English-Canadian direction; huge armies, consist- 
ing mainly of men born in the British Isles, 
were in concentration camps. Invasion of On- 
tario would have been mad suicide. It would 
hare been an untrained, unarmed mob, courting 
annihilation at the hands of an efficient, powerful 
army. And strangely enough, such a war, or rather 
massacre, was apparently not abhorrent to some 
English-Canadians. To raise the cry of Civil War 
could serve no good purpose in English-Canadian 
preparedness. If "The News" had reliable in- 
formation that the clergy were planning to force 
Ontario to submit by arms, the information became 
legitimate news that should have been withheld 
only for State reasons ; but if the information were 



FRENCH CANADA AND THE WAR 285 

unreliable, the printing of it became — well, I shall 
let the reader fill in an appropriate adjective. "The 
News" has saved us the trouble of investigating the 
reliability of its information. It came not from the 
paper's regular correspondents, who, surely, were 
informed of conditions, but from "a visitor from 
the United States." "The News" frankly said so. 
Yet the announcement upon this scandalously 
scanty foundation was printed in scare-head type 
in the editorial columns of a Government organ. If 
twenty visitors from the United States, or, for that 
matter, twenty visitors from Jamaica, or any other 
part of the world, had told "The News" that 
twenty French priests had boasted that they would 
compel Ontario to submit "to Quebec's demand for 
enthronement of French," repetition of their irre- 
sponsible chatter would still have been condem- 
nable. Had the words been ever so true, their 
repetition in "The News" could have had no other 
effect than to sow dissension in a field where har- 
mony was needed as the water of life. And that is 
but one illustration of the many that might be given 
of what Ontario's press — Conservative and Liberal 
— was saying while recruiting agents sought to 
stimulate enthusiasm for Britain's cause in Quebec. 
Almost from the first days of the war the Ontario 
press vented its sarcasm and caustic epithets not 
merely upon the slackers of Quebec; no, upon Que- 
bec as a Province, upon the French-Canadians as a 
nationality. Ontario assumed that Quebec was go- 
ing to be disloyal, and proceeded to prod it into 



286 THE CLASH 

the trenches. If we remember the feeling that 
existed between the two Provinces, we can at once 
realise the results. It seems incredible that the 
press of Ontario should not have known that it 
could not raise soldiers in Quebec; should not have 
known that its activities in Quebec could not 
produce men; should not have known that it 
was daily harming, rather than helping, the cause 
for which it so volubly professed a love. If 
England had said to Ontario, to Canada, to Aus- 
tralia, and to South Africa, what Ontario said to 
Quebec — and she might have said more, with bet- 
ter reason — the Empire could not have held to- 
gether. The Empire must have foundered in a 
turbulent sea of reproach. Nothing but England's 
generosity, England's sympathy, England's bigness, 
held, in the perilous first days of war, the roughly 
joined organism which men named Great Britain. 
If England followed the path towards unity and 
success, then Ontario trod the way that leads to 
disunity and failure. 

We have seen that Ontario built its overseas bat- 
talions upon the foundation of its militia. But 
there was "only one French-Canadian infantry 
unit, with headquarters in the great City of Mont- 
real, against three English-speaking infantry units; 
as against cavalry, artillery, army service and army 
medical corps, all practically English-speaking," 
in Montreal, according to an English-speak- 
ing officer high in the service. French-Cana- 
dian paucity of militia men before the war cannot 



FRENCH CANADA AND THE WAR 287 

very well be accounted disloyalty; for if French 
Canada before the war had been strong in militia, 
it might have been taken as evidence of prepara- 
tion for overt disloyalty. Few thought then that 
Canada would ever be engaged in a life and death 
struggle with a foreign power, and there were 
many who talked lightly, as did the "News," of a 
conflict between French and English in Canada. 
But let us hold tightly to the thread of the argu- 
ment. Quebec in August, 1914, was exactly where 
Ontario would have been without its thousands of 
militia men trained to think of themselves as a part 
of war. Quebec was without a foundation upon 
which to build battalions for active service — and it 
is hard to build without a foundation. 

No! Quebec or rather French Canada, was not 
where Ontario and English Canada would have 
been without its militia. Her hands were tied by 
the past — that was not all of her own making — and, 
with the coming of the war, unfriendly hands were 
to draw the knots still tighter. A body cannot be 
pummelled without being bruised — not even a 
body politic. And French Canada, when the war 
opened in August, 1914, was black and blue and 
bleeding, but still struggling to be all free. No one 
loves and respects freedom for its own sake more 
than our French-Canadian countrymen. No one 
is more willing to give his all in its defence than 
the French-Canadian. But many eyes were blinded 
by tears of rage and sorrow at the loss of national 
freedom in a part of the lands that were once their 



288 THE CLASH 

fathers. Many did not at first see clearly the issue 
of freedom in Europe. 

When the war broke out, voluntaryism was a 
principle of the British people. The principle may 
have been wrong, but it was ours; and we were 
proud of the fact that British men might serve or 
abstain from serving in the King's army, as they 
pleased. Like many another treasured ideal, vol- 
untaryism went down in the cataclysm of the Great 
War. Voluntaryism failed to fill the ranks in the 
United Kingdom; failed in Australia; and failed 
in Canada. Then — there was nothing left but con- 
scription. And after all, it is a postulate of de- 
mocracy that all should bear equally the burdens 
of war. The argument seems plain; yet it must 
be remembered it did not at first appeal to Eng- 
lish men and women who for months after the 
war clung to the old system of voluntaryism Not 
until English coasts had been ravaged and destruc- 
tion had fallen from the clouds upon English 
homes, did the Government introduce conscrip- 
tion ; there were murmurs of dissent, but they were 
downed by an aroused public who knew then that 
neither business nor politics could be carried on 
"as usual." 

In Australia the people were consulted and re- 
fused to reverse the traditional British policy. 
There is no disloyalty to be implied in its rejection. 
Crawford Vaughan, a former Prime Minister of 
South Australia, recently told a Canadian Club 
audience that while "he himself had been an advo- 



FRENCH CANADA AND THE WAR 289 

catc of the democratic principle of conscription, 
the majority believed that the voluntary system 
would be adequate, and the result could not more 
be attributed to the Labour party than to any other 
party; even the men at the front so firmly believed 
in the higher morale of volunteers that they had 
voted against conscription on the ground that they 
did not wish *to be mixed up with slackers.' " 

Conscription was no more necessary for Canada 
than for Australia; and necessary for both, simply 
because the all-absorbing war had exhausted the 
resources of voluntaryism. That was the one fact 
that had to be squarely brought home to the people. 
Unhappily that one essential fact was smothered 
in Canada by an appeal to the passions of race 
and religion. From the first, before the Govern- 
ment had announced its decision on the subject, 
before there had been an alignment of public opin- 
ion, the necessity of conscription was represented by 
men whose voices carried from one end of Canada 
to the other, as the result of French-Canadian 
failure to enlist for overseas service. Sir Robert 
Borden and other English-Canadians manfully 
tried to stay the hand of those who made of con- 
scription a race and religious issue, but their voices 
were drowned in the tumult. Was it humanly rea- 
sonable to expect from French Canada substantial 
support for even a just measure urged upon these 
grounds? 

Nor did Ontario conscriptionists rest here; as if 
to make doubly sure of French Canada's opposi- 



290 THE CLASH 

tion, assaults were made upon the independence of 
her laity and the loyalty of her clergy. At the back 
of French-Canadian lethargy lay the directing 
hand of the priest, it was urged. It may be true that 
there were French-Canadian clergy as well as lay- 
men affected by the campaign of non-participation 
spread over Quebec in 1911 by English-Canadian 
finance; but the advocates of conscription, omitting 
that stage of our political development from con- 
sideration, carried the responsibility for non-par- 
ticipation direct to the doors of the Church. Espe- 
cially upon the priests who had fied from France 
in the days of her Church persecution, was heaped 
the burden of abuse. "They seek revenge," it was 
whispered from door to door, and gaining strength 
by repetition, the charge was repeated openly from 
the hustings. It may be that there were clerical 
exiles who saw an intimate connection between 
their own sorrows and the sorrows of France, but 
nowhere is there a finer record of devotion and 
sacrifice for native land than that which has been 
left by the French priests who were in Canada at 
the outbreak of the war. All but the aged and un- 
fit answered in a body the call of the mother land. 
While these charges of disloyal intrigue were being 
made, Franciscans, Jesuits, Sulpicians, Christian 
Brothers, Capuchins, Oblates, Trappists, Marists, 
Eudists, Dominicans, all were represented in the 
ranks of those who, with rifle and bayonet, fought 
oH the invading foe. While their detractors were 
standing on the safe flooring of hustings several 



FRENCH CANADA AND THE WAR 291 

thousand miles from danger, nearly a round score 
of these priests had made the supreme sacrifice, and 
lay buried beneath the Christian cross that marks 
a soldier's grave; while others, more than a score 
in number, bore upon living breasts, the military 
crosses with which France decorates her brave. 
There are among these French priests, wantonly 
accused of disloyalty, more than a score who will 
return to Canada as cripples, some armless and 
others legless, and one who, returning, will never 
more see Canada, for he is blind. When the his- 
tory of the war is written, one of its inspiring pages 
will be the deeds of these French Roman Catholic 
priests who left Canada to defend as private sol- 
diers their mother country, and not its least humil- 
iating page will be the story of those who, exalt- 
ing prejudice above patriotism, succeeded in set- 
ting race against race, and Church against Church 
by defaming the names of those of French nation- 
ality and the Roman Catholic religion who gave 
their all to the common cause. 

It was bitterly unfortunate. We are told we 
should forgive; and we should. But — 

"Forgiveness to the injured does belong 

But they never pardon who have done the wrong." 

Nor will forgiving the past solve the problem of 
the present; provide for unity in the future. The 
wrong must be righted. The past is unsever- 
ably tied into the present and let us not 
forget that to-day will be the past of to- 



292 THE CLASH 

morrow. These things are not merely off- 
shoots of a domestic situation; we can now see 
them as the inevitable results of "a world-old and 
world-discredited mistake." Let us return to the 
experience of the outside world, not for consola- 
tion, but for the purpose of looking at ourselves in 
the clear light that comes from viewing a situation 
in the making of which we had no part. It will be 
remembered that in an early chapter we had this 
applicable quotation from "War and Democracy" : 
"There are governments in Europe so foolish as to 
think that men and women deprived of their na- 
tional institutions, humiliated in their deepest feel- 
ings, and forced into an alien mould, can make 
good citizens, trustworthy soldiers, or even obedi- 
ent subjects." 



CHAPTER XVI 



IN REVIEW 



We have found nationality standing for those 
thoughts and habits of life which are dearer than 
others because they are "our own." Because they 
are the dearest possessions of mankind, Great Brit- 
ain has respected national things; in Canada, in 
South Africa, in India, the people who became 
British were left free as Canadians, Boers, and 
Hindus, to continue their group development in the 
land around which their traditions had grown; 
were left free to cherish the achievements of the 
past, and free to work along their own lines for the 
greater achievements of the future. That is what 
is meant by national freedom. Do we believe in 
it? Of course we believe in our own freedom, and 
so does every other people; but such belief is not 
enough. Do we believe in national freedom as a 
principle? Time and time again we have said so; 
how then can we reconcile our words with our 
action in curtailing the freedom of a nationality 
that, by the force of war, has become subject to 
our domination in its native land. 

"Modern Europe cannot allow a people to be 
seized like a herd of cattle; she cannot continue 
deaf to the repeated protests of threatened nation- 
alities, she owes it to her instinct of self-preserva- 

293 



294 THE CLASH 

tion to forbid such abuses of power." So cried 
Alsace and Lorraine in 1871 when on the verge of 
losing the free exercise of those thoughts and 
habits of life which were dearer to them than any 
other because they were their own. So cries 
French Canada in Ontario and Manitoba to-day. 
Do we believe in national freedom? We began 
our enquiries with this question, and after survey- 
ing the field we are compelled to ask it again. It 
is the issue that will not down ; no amount of legis- 
lation, no decisions of the Privy Council, will 
change the fact that a people once free to pursue 
its development after its own fashion is being 
forced in this, its native land, into an alien mould; 
is being compelled against its will to have its 
children prepared, in an alien language, for life's 
work. Germany answered the disturbing cry of 
Alsace and Lorraine with the statement: It is the 
law. And it was the law, as sound a law in Alsace 
and Lorraine as in Ontario and Manitoba. But 
neither in Alsace and Lorraine, nor in Ontario and 
Manitoba, is it national morality or national jus- 
tice. 

In Ontario and Manitoba it is something more 
than immorality and injustice: it is ingratitude. 
To give the Teutons their due, they were under 
no obligations to the Alsatians and Lorrainers 
for national services. But we English-Cana- 
dians should never forget that French Canada 
refused to take part in the American Revolu- 
tion. The past cannot be blotted out. Whether 



IN REVIEW 295 

we will or will not, we live in the past When 
I think of this country's national past, I re- 
member having heard that only three genera- 
tions ago, one of my ancestors crossed the Niagara 
River and, reaching Canada, thanked God that he 
was again under the Union Jack. No! My ances- 
tor was not playing a part in melodrama ; he was 
simply a hard-headed man from the Jersey side of 
the Hudson River, believing that, in spite of the 
impost on tea, liberty could not flourish in America 
without British protection. It will be remembered 
that his belief in the unsafety of religious liberty 
in America was grounded on family experience. 
Convinced of the value of English national tradi- 
tions, he sought a home where his children and 
children's children could build upon those tradi- 
tions. He came not to destroy the convictions of 
others, hut to build upon his own. He left the 
shores of the dividing Niagara River cursed — in 
English — as a Britisher, and landed on British soil 
to receive a "bienvenu." I cannot forget that the 
first kindness my ancestor received in his new home 
was from a French-Canadian. He and his bene- 
factor did not understand each other's language, 
but what were mere words to men who understand 
each other's spirit. Those pioneers of the New 
World who stuck by King George in the upsetting 
days of the seventeen-seventies had much in com- 
mon : both were Loyalists and both were Royalists ; 
both looked upon the Union Jack as a symbol of 
national and religious freedom. The French- 



296 THE CLASH 

Canadian- had retained his freedom through Brit- 
ain's sense of freedom, and Canada had remained 
British because of French-Canadian appreciation. 

When we were the minority and they the major- 
ity in those early days, the hospitality of the Cana- 
dian wilderness was proverbial. There were few 
inns. The stranger — English or French — was 
made welcome in the home; and the guest of to- 
day was the host of to-morrow. The fires were 
kept burning under the kettle; pea-soup and soupe- 
aux-pois were one and the same thing when served 
in the rough-hewn log houses. There was a dif- 
ference between English and French it is true ; but 
it was that between p-e-a-s and p-o-i-s. Through- 
out the land there was a spirit of the brotherhood 
of man which, with the herding of men in cities, 
has become only a thing of meaningless words. 

As recorded in the history of that period, the 
Recollet Fathers loaned a church to the Presby- 
terians whilst their own place of worship was be- 
ing built. The Presbyterians were grateful — as 
was to be expected — and recorded their acknowl- 
edgment in one of the first minutes of their church 
meeting, presenting the Fathers with "one box of 
candles, 56 lbs. at 8d., and one hogshead of Spanish 
wine at £6, 5s." The preservation of the details 
is not merely an illustration of Scotch thrift: it is 
primarily an illustration of the relations between 
French, English and Scotch, Catholic and Prot- 
estant, in the days before politicians and editors 
became directors of public sentiment. 



IN REVIEW 297 

But in time's course we became the majority and 
they the minority. In the reconstruction days after 
the war men came from English-speaking parts in 
tidal waves, from England, from Scotland, from 
Ireland and from the United States. Then we de- 
manded and received self-government. Surely no 
specific restrictions were necessary to preserve the 
interests of the French-Canadians from despolia- 
tion at our hands! Surely belief in national free- 
dom and gratitude for past national favours ought 
to have ensured the continued existence of French- 
Canadians as French-Canadians within the self- 
governing Province ! Surely self-government is not 
identical with selfish government! Did French- 
Canadians preserve this country for Britain only 
to lose their national freedom when they became 
a minority of one, or even as one is to twelve? To- 
day the Boers are as confident of the protecting 
power of the Union Jack in Africa as the French 
once were in Canada. Last year (May IS, 1917) 
General Smuts, the veteran Boer leader, was given 
a banquet by members of both Houses of the Im- 
perial Parliament, and on that occasion set forth 
his understanding of Britain's principle of free- 
dom. He said: ''Even the nations which have 
fought against it, like my own, must feel that their 
cultural interests, their language, their religion, arc 
as safe and as secure under the British flag as those 
of the children of your own household and your 
own blood. It is only in proportion as this is real- 
ised that you will fulfil the true mission which is 
yours." 

21 



298 THE CLASH 

For many years after the Conquest the French- 
Canadians felt as do the Boers that their cultural 
interests, their language, their religion, were as 
safe and as secure under the British flag as those 
of the children of the English household and the 
English blood. And with good reason. We have 
seen Britain's intention in the days of the Quebec 
Act expressed by Thurlow, Fox, and Burke. And 
it was all for freedom. In 1857 Egerton Ryerson, 
who laid the cultural lines of the land that is now 
called Ontario, made the statement that "French is 
the recognised language of the country, as well as 
English." For many years after Confederation 
French-Canadians felt reasonably safe, although 
then the advocates of "the other way" — the way 
that is not Britain's — had begun to threaten their 
security. In 1889 Sir Oliver Mowat^ who for 
many years presided over the affairs of Ontario, 
said: "Our opponents insist that the Government 
should insist on all instruction being given to the 
French children in the English language. No such 
regulation was suggested by the Commissioners, 
and none such has been made, because such a 
regulation would be absurd; and, instead of serv- 
ing the cause of education, would often prevent 
education altogether. How can you teach in a 
language which the children do not understand?" 
But Mowat's day came to its end and "the oppo- 
nents" now have their way. Now all instruction is 
to be given to French children in the English lan- 
guage. 



IN REVIEW 299 

Some day the Boers may be a minority in South 
Africa, as the French-Canadians are in Ontario 
to-day. When the spaces of African land are filled 
with English-speaking men and women, is Boer 
culture and the Dutch language to be restricted by 
an English-speaking majority? Will the plea that 
the Boers have not occupied all the land — have 
left room for others — be sufficient to justify the 
majority in insisting that Boer children be in- 
structed solely in English? in relegating the Dutch 
language to a minor place on the school curriculum 
beside geography? Will an English-speaking 
majority seek to force an English-speaking man's 
mind upon the Boer, as one seeks to force it upon 
the French-Canadian in Ontario and Manitoba to- 
day? 

Is there no such thing as national freedom? Is 
there only State freedom? It was not the State that 
developed the treasured culture : it was the nation- 
alities. Is there freedom only for the culture of 
the majority? freedom only when it can be pro- 
tected by ballots or bullets? If that be true, then 
where does the British sense of freedom differ 
from that of Germany, of Turkey, or of any other 
country? Where is there freedom at all? Un- 
less a man has freedom for his national culture in 
his native land, he has no freedom; he has nothing 
worth while. 

"For what avail the plow, or sail, 
Or land, or life, if freedom fail?" 

In the light of the country's past and in the light 



300 THE CLASH 

of the world's present, the French-Canadians are 
morally entitled to cultural autonomy in the land 
which Britain holds under the title deeds of the 
Treaty of Paris. It is a moral obligation, but surely 
moral obligations are our sacred obligations! 

While the State is a casing, we must not forget 
that as a casing it requires strength if the thoughts 
and habits of life which are dearer than others are 
to be protected. Here lies the argument upon 
which Germany most relies to justify its harsh, 
unbending course towards Teutonic homogeneity. 
Germany protests that the casing will be weakened 
by sheltering a Polish nationality; a Danish nation- 
ality; and a French nationality; and that in conse- 
quence the Teutonic nationality may be exposed. 
Likewise Ontario argues that it cannot house 
twin nationalities. "One school and one language" 
has been the cry; and in vehement English we are 
told only with one of each can we continue to have 
"one flag." It is but a reiteration of the old pre- 
christian Athenian precept, "one Blood, one 
Speech, one Cult, one congruous Way of Living," 
expressed after the manner of the Americans of 
the United States. Have those who argue that 
way forgotten the plain teaching of history that, 
if all the American Colonies had been homo- 
geneous in the days when Britain's fortunes were 
at their lowest ebb, if all had spoken the same 
tongue and attended the same Church, all would 
have been to-day under one flag, and that flag 
would not have been British. 



IN REVIEW SOI 

But let us lay aside a sense of gratitude to the 
French-Canadians for retaining this country for 
Britain, as apparently those who argue for one 
school and one language would have us do, and 
regard our relations as only of the present and 
future. We will remember the argument for the 
necessity of homogeneity, at first sight, appeared 
formidable ; but proceeding further, we found that 
homogeneity had never been secured by the birch 
of the school-master. That ought to be enough to 
make us desist from continuing "the world-old and 
world-discredited mistake." But were we to suc- 
ceed in forcing our culture upon an unwilling peo- 
ple, where others have failed — a highly improbable 
supposition^even then let us remember homo- 
geneity is no assurance against disruption of the 
State. Let us again remember our English-speak- 
ing Protestant Loyalist ancestors who fought 
against their Englishrspeaking Protestant Revolu- 
tionary neighbours; who after the war were 
imprisoned, were deprived of their property, and 
subjected to gross indignities. "Why should per- 
sons who are preying upon the vitals of their coun- 
try," said the Governor of Connecticut, "be suffered 
to remain at large, whilst we know they will do us 
every mischief in their power" ; and the Governor 
of Connecticut spoke the language of those whom 
he drove from the country. Nor did homogeneity 
in language save the United States — the homo- 
genist's pattern of polity — from civil war in the 
eighteen-sixties. Protestant fought Protestant, 



302 THE CLASH 

and in both armies, English words were the words 
of command. The fact that the Englishman of 
England and the American of the United States 
spoke the same language in much the same way 
in 1812, did not prevent them from fighting. We 
had a domestic clash of arms ourselves twenty- 
five years later, and men did not divide upon their 
manner of spelling freedom, but upon their man- 
ner of thinking freedom. No! There is some- 
thing better than "one school" and "one language" : 
And that something is harmony in diversity. 

The very struggle that the French-Canadians 
are making to-day, its tenacity and its depth of re- 
solve against great odds, is our best assurance that 
they are a fit people beside whom free men may 
dwell in a common State. If French-Canadians 
have not shown quite the same readiness as Eng- 
lish-Canadians to arm in defence of freedom these 
past few years, it must be remembered that they 
have not had the same incentive. Would we have 
done what they have done? is a rough and ready 
rule by which men may judge the conduct of others. 
If the situation had been reversed, if it were Eng- 
lish-speaking people who had been forced, in any 
one of the nine Provinces, to have their children 
educated in an alien tongue and limited in the use 
of their own, would they have done better than the 
French-Canadians in fighting for freedom on the 
Continent of Europe? It was not the existence of 
twin nationalities that weakened the casing; it was 
the attempt of one of the twins to destroy the other. 



IN REVIEW 303 

It was in fact a repetition "of the world-old and 
world-discredited mistake" that brought the disaf- 
fection natural to its train. 

We have found that, ethnically, we Canadians 
who speak French and English are first cousins. 
There is no immutable blood difference between 
us. Nationally we are not the same. We cannot 
stay to review the evidence of the nature and extent 
of the difference, but we would indeed be blind if 
we did not recognise its value. It takes all sorts 
of men, says the old proverb, to make a world. "It 
takes all sorts of nations," writes Alfred Zimmern, 
"to make a modern State." Diversity, not homo- 
geneity, is the strength, not the weakness, of the 
British Empire. Speaking at the South African 
dinner given in his honor on May 22, 1917, General 
Smuts explained Boer ideas on this feature of the 
case in these words: "The policy General Botha 
and his associates have stood for is that we must 
have national unity in South Africa as the one true 
basis for future stability and strength — and that 
national unity is entirely consistent with the pre- 
servation of our language, our traditions, our 
cultural interests, and all that is dear to us in our 
past. The view we have taken is this, that the dif- 
ferent elements in our white populations ought 
really to be used to build up a stronger and more 
powerful nation than would have been possible 
if we had consisted purely of one particular 
strain." 

In Canada, English talent is complemented by 



304 THE CLASH 

French talent; we are oot alike, and yet we are not 
sufficiently unlike to render political cohesion im- 
possible. We English-Canadians have neither all 
the virtues nor all the vices ; and the same may be 
said of the French-Canadians. If I have uncov- 
ered more of the English-Canadian shortcomings 
than of the French-Canadian, from whom does it 
come in better part than from an English-Cana- 
dian, sharing all the faults of his nationality. 

Seldom do we English-Canadians lay ourselves 
open to the charge of self-depreciation. Too often 
do we exaggerate our own virtues and regard our 
own vices tolerantly — sometimes affectionately — 
and vent our indignation upon the other fellows'. 
A few years ago there were evidences of corruption 
in the Quebec Legislature, and English-Canadians 
wagged their heads and said, "I told you so: the 
French-Canadian is innately corrupt in public 
life." This is an English-Canadian's standing 
charge against the French-Canadian: he does not 
hold fast to a high standard of morality in public 
affairs. When we are faced with the clean records 
of Sir Wilfrid Laurier and Sir Lomer Gouin, we 
smugly assume that their virtues are in some way 
due to contact with English-Canadians. They are 
exceptions, we protest : and exceptions are necessary 
to prove the rule. Not many years before the Que- 
bec incident there had been evidences of corrup- 
tion in the Ontario Legislature surrounding the 
Gamey charges, and shortly afterwards there was 
a big scandal in the Manitoba Legislature involv- 



IN REVIEW SOS 

ing men in high places, later on another scandal 
involving members of the Saskatchewan Legisla- 
ture — and yet no one thought of interpreting these 
things as evidence of the innate corruption of Eng- 
lish-Canadians, corruption at Toronto, Winnipeg, 
and Regina, was just plain corruption, regrettable, 
but certainly not indicative of innate badness in 
English-Canadian character. Nor was it; nor 
was the Quebec affair indicative of French-Cana- 
dian character. 

We English-Canadians have habitually had our 
good eye upon French-Canadian faults, and our 
blind eye upon our own. We have judged the 
French-Canadians by their poorest men, the Eng- 
lish-Canadians by their best; and have not, un- 
naturally, concluded that, financially, commercial- 
ly, artisically, morally, socially, and generally, we 
are superior. 

Shortly after Earl Grey had taken possession of 
Government House at Ottawa, in conversation with 
a rich English-Canadian merchant, he asked of the 
health and fortunes of Philippe Hebert, the sculp- 
tor. "I don't know him," confessed the merchant. 
"Don't know him?" gasped Earl Grey. "My dear 
man, he is one of the most distinguished Cana- 
dians." "Oh, a French-Canadian!" commented 
the merchant, and continued in what at least Earl 
Grey apparently thought were tones of deprecia- 
tion : "We English-Canadians meet so few French- 
Canadians." "That is your misfortune," replied 
the Governor-General, "and a double misfortune in 



306 THE CLASH 

the case of Hebert. I assure you that in England 
he was quite a lion. The cultured and distin- 
guished were honoured by his acquaintance." 

Did the reader ever have a heart-to-heart talk 
with a Chinaman about other matters than shirts 
or salads? Did he ever fathom his opinion of the 
relative values of nationalities? If he be a frank 
Chinaman and the reader a sympathetic listener, 
the Chinaman will say that his people are superior 
to all others. They have, in his opinion, forgotten 
more than others ever knew. Has the reader 
watched the supercilious smile that played over the 
face of his Indian guide when he wearily and blun- 
deringly stumbled through the bush? The Indian 
has a conviction of the inferiority of the tenderfoot. 
The bearded Jew, only a few years from the 
ghetto of Russia, who buys our old bones, bottles, 
and cast-off clothing, for less than the price of a 
song at the opera, sincerely believes himself and 
his people the chosen of God, and the Talmud the 
receptacle of all wisdom. The conviction of race 
and national superiority lies deeply in the breast of 
all men who rub shoulders only with their own. We 
have analysed that feature of our belief at length, 
and dwell upon it in conclusion because it is indeed 
the well of our troubles. So long as we continue 
to drink its intoxicating waters we shall never dwell 
in harmony with the French-Canadians, nor any 
other nationality, not even with the men whom we 
called "bronchos" and "sparrows" before the war. 

We know the worth of few things save by com- 



IN REVIEW 307 

parison ; and seldom know out own worth, because 
when it is involved we seldom make an honest com- 
parison. At times we have bitterly resented the 
Englishman persistently confusing us with the 
Americans of the United States. I remember hav- 
ing heard the late Honourable Mr. Tweedie relate 
an illustrating incident in his career as a Cabinet 
Minister of New Brunswick. He had had occa- 
sion to visit officially the British Consul-General 
of New York, and followed his card into the Con- 
sular office. "Ah," said the official looking at the 
card in a reminiscent way, "Tweedie of New 
Brunswick — Brunswick — yes — I remember now. I 
was there a year ago." And yet further conversa- 
tion revealed that the Consul-General had not 
been out of the United States since crossing the 
Atlantic. He had been in the City of New Bruns- 
wick in the State of New Jersey, and had confused 
it with the Province of New Brunswick in the 
Dominion of Canada. "Stupid Englishman" we, 
who had heard Mr. Tweedie's story, exclaimed. 

But is this constant confusion of Canada with 
the United States the result of English stupidity? 
Is none of it due to our unimpressing individual- 
ity? Some years ago I met a distinguished Eng- 
lish author who, having spent several weeks in the 
United States, was in New York preparing to sail 
for home. "And you have not visited Canada!" I 
protested. "No; I was in the United States two 
years ago, and that will do as well; for you are 
certainly doing and thinking now what the Amer- 



308 THE CLASH 

icans did and thought then," he replied quizzically. 
"On this trip I am visiting you as it were two years 
hence," he continued, as if to give a stronger punch 
at our belated imitativeness. The remark was made 
with a smile, but I must confess it was received 
with a twinge. Was it altogether without truth? 
Distinguished Englishmen and Europeans are con- 
stantly passing through the United States and pass- 
ing by Canada. Are we really in English Canada 
culturally nothing more than an "up-state" part 
of the American Republic? We found in our en- 
quiries that we are dependent upon the Americans 
of the United States for many things that go to 
make up nationality. But are we really bankrupt 
in cultural individuality? Have we English-Cana- 
dians no thoughts and habits of life which are 
our own? If that be true or even partially true, 
then surely we cannot justly blame the French- 
Canadians for holding fast to their own and refus- 
ing to accept an English-Canadian culture, the 
existence of which the world persists in ignoring. 
Are the waters genuine in that well of superiority? 
It may be that some features of our domestic clash 
would be settled if the Lord were to answer a 
prayer made after the manner of the poet Burns: 

"Oh, wad some power the giftie gie us 
To see oursel's as others see us! 
It wad frae monie a blunder free us 
And foolish notion. ' ' 

I must confess that I do not look upon the situa- 
tion as one in which of necessity we ought to make a 



IN REVIEW 309 

virtue. It is true, as the old Chinese proverb runs, 
that "a wise man adapts himself to circumstances, 
as v^ater shapes itself to the vessel that contains it." 
But personally I would not alter the circumstances. 
I confess I do not look forward with pleasure to 
the day when all men, subject to Canada's soil, 
climate, food, and the general aspects of Nature, 
will have the same habit of thought — if Buckle is 
right. Canada needs both mentalities, one to 
temper and strengthen the other. They are nat- 
ural complements. The Provinces of Canada 
will gain, not lose, by protecting alike the culture 
of the descendants of the Old and the New Re- 
gimes. History does not justify Ontario's plea for 
repudiation on the ground of the inadequacy of 
State machinery. I cannot believe Lord Acton 
wrong in saying that "a State which is incompetent 
to satisfy different races condemns itself; a State 
which labours to neutralise, to absorb, or to expel 
them, destroys its own vitality; a State which does 
not include them is destitute of the chief basis of 
self-government." The existence of the French 
and English nationalities in Canada is the handi- 
work of Divine Providence, out of which, with 
mutual toleration, will come inestimable benefit to 
Canada, and it may be when both are bigger, older, 
and wiser, a substantial good to the whole world. 
Those who would force an English mind upon 
the French-Canadian, who refuse to tolerate the 
"French pretensions to nationality" within Canada, 
have drawn great comfort from Lord Durham's 



310 THE CLASH 

report on the Affairs of British North America. 
Spending only five months in North America (and 
then the country had no expeditious travel by rail- 
way), Lord Durham became convinced of the 
necessity of homogeneity and blamed the British 
Government, as Sir C. P. Lucas, in his able review 
of Lord Durham's Report, says, "for not having 
steadily and with a whole heart, taken the British 
side and subordinated the French." Many Eng- 
lish-Canadians share in this opinion, forgetting 
with Lord Durham that such a policy could have 
succeeded only, as Sir C. P. Lucas points out, on 
the hypothesis "that the home Government had de- 
termined to run counter to the British instinct of 
fair-play and generosity to the conquered, which, 
after all, is nearly the most valuable asset that a 
ruling race can possess/^ The italics are mine; but 
the words are those of one of England's able con- 
stitutional historians. 

Lord Durham placed much of his case for sub- 
merging French-Canadian nationality, as do Eng- 
lish-Canadians to-day, upon analogies taken from 
the United States. Professing no great regard for 
the integrity of American politics, there are men 
who are not above appealing to it on occasion for 
justification of their own conduct. But in this mat- 
ter the analogy does not hold good. In our first 
chapter we found in the will to preserve a force 
which must be reckoned with in measuring the 
legitimacy of a claim for national recognition. This 
all-important factor was not sufficiently appre- 



IN REVIEW 311 

ciated by Lord Durham. "He takes the case of 
Louisiana," says Sir C. P. Lucas, "but the French 
in the Province of Quebec held it by far greater 
numbers and by far longer tenure than they held 
Louisiana ; while the Dutch in New York, to whom 
Lord Durham also refers, had only a fifty years' 
tenure of Manhattan Island and the Hudson valley 
before they were brought under British rule. He 
might have noted that the Dutch in South Africa 
absorbed the handful of Huguenots who settled 
among them, but this illustration also would not 
have been in point. From the dawn of colonisa- 
tion in North America the valley of the St. Law- 
rence had been the home of the French, and the his- 
tory of Canada had testified abundantly to their 
stubbornness and their strength. In the year 1838 
or 1839 it was too late to talk of denationalising a 
people who had made the land their own; and it 
was hopeless to think that efforts to do so would 
extinguish the bitterness of race feeling." 

If it was "too late" in 1838 to crush the national 
will of the French-Canadians, if then the French- 
Canadians had "made the land their own," how 
late is it in 1918 when the French-Canadians have 
grown by numbers and cultural achievement into 
full national consciousness. "It was left to Lord 
Elgin," continues Sir C. P. Lucas, "while carrying 
out in full Lord Durham's views of responsible 
government, and sharing Lord Durham's con- 
fidence that responsible government would make 
for loyalty and not for separation, to repudiate at 



312 THE CLASH 

the same time his father-in-law's doctrine that the 
French should be denationalised, and to advocate 
free play for their language and their usages. Later 
history has proved how far from the fact was Lord 
Durham's estimate that the French-Canadian na- 
tionality must necessarily be absorbed ; for, having 
been left to its destiny under a system of popular 
government, it has more than held its own within 
and even beyond the province of Quebec." 

But how are we to fit the casing around the 
two nationalities? We are told there are so 
many difficulties in the way — and there are a few. 
It has been difficult to secure teachers who know 
the two languages. Yes, and difficult to secure 
teachers who know one. Securing teachers is, after 
all, only a matter of money — and already enough 
money has been poured out over litigation on our 
bi-lingual school troubles to educate several gen- 
erations of bi-lingual school teachers. There were 
teachers, according to the government reports, in 
the English-French schools that had not proper 
certificates ; and I am told there are a thousand or 
more teachers in the English schools who have not 
proper certificates. There will always be difficulty 
in finding teachers for our schools until we are pre- 
pared to make teaching a permanent profession 
paid in proportion to its importance. Where a 
rural community is divided in such a way that it 
is impossible to satisfy English and French require- 
ments by a single school, then the State must step in 
and satisfy both by two schools. The situation 



IN REVIEW 313 

must be met, as in other countries, by a general levy. 
It is, if you like, a penalty for having obtained this 
land by conquest; a situation w^hich must be met 
just as we meet our obligations to the aborigines. 
There are innumerable difficulties in the w^ay of 
doing anything we do not want to do. When the 
will comes, then the way will follow. It was 
Napoleon who, 113 years ago, wrote to George III 
when on another occasion French and English 
differed, that "reason is sufficiently powerful to 
discover means of reconciling everything when the 
wish for reconciliation exists on both sides." 

Across the Ottawa in the Province of Quebec 
there are 211 thousand Canadians of English and 
Scotch descent — or were when the census man went 
his rounds in 191 1. On this side of the Ottawa in 
1911, there were 202 thousand French-Canadians. 
In Quebec there were 244 thousand Protestants, 
and in Ontario 485 thousand Roman Catholics. If 
we really want to find a way to harmony in diver- 
sity, perhaps it is to be had no farther away than 
Quebec, where men neither as Englishmen nor as 
Protestants have reason to find fault with their 
school treatment. The "British Protestants," as 
they were named by the Fathers of Confederation, 
have a deputy minister or, as he is styled. Secretary 
of Education, in the State that is governed by 
French Roman Catholics. They have their inspec- 
tors, regulate their own course of studies, have, in 
fact, a school autonomy where they are a minority 
as one to eight. 

22 



314 THE CLASH 

But in so controversial a matter I must be speci- 
fic. At a meeting of the Dominion Educational 
Association, Mr. J. C. Sutherland, the Inspector- 
General of Protestant Schools in Quebec, was 
asked some questions by sceptical officials of the 
other Provinces, the answers to which are illumina- 
tive of the possibility of having harmony in diver- 
sity. 

"Inspector Lang: — You are not really under an 
iron despotism, then? 

"Mr. Sutherland: — No. We have wonderful 
freedom and whatever we want they give us; we 
never have any trouble. Agriculture and drawing 
are the only two compulsory subjects in the general 
school law, which says that those shall be taught in 
all public schools. The other course is decided by 
the Protestant Committee for the Protestant 
schools, and by the Catholic Committee for the 
Catholic schools. This committee is appointed for 
life. I was on the Protestant Committee for seven 
years before I was appointed in the Department. 

"Dr. Carter: You are getting along very har- 
moniously, and you seem very optimistic. 

"Mr. Sutherland: — We never have any trouble; 
we are happy as clams down there." 

As "happy as clams in Quebec" — and clams are 
supposed to be extraordinarily chummy and happy 
— and all through tolerance. The French-Cana- 
dian Catholic majority has given the English-Ca- 
nadian Protestant minority freedom, and both are 
satisfied. I cannot resist the temptation to re-quote 



IN REVIEW 315 

Bishop Creighton's apt sentence: "Practically we 
are tolerant because no harm comes of our being 
so." 

Now let us have the situation west of the Ot- 
tawa. Here the French-Canadians have no deputy, 
no secretary, no committee, and no voice, as 
French-Canadians, in the education of their own 
children. The Province has taken fifteen of the 
sixteen ounces of flesh to which it is entitled under 
the British North America Act; Quebec has never 
drawn the knife. "Whatever we want, we Prot- 
estants there, we just say what we want and the 
Government wants to do it," Mr. Sutherland told 
the Ontario men at the ninth convention of the 
Dominion Educational Association — but without 
avail. Have the State loosen its control over the 
schools of the Province? Never 1 I hear some of 
my readers say with emphasis. But does it not all 
depend upon who is in control of the State. If the 
French-Canadian Catholics were in control in On- 
tario, as in Quebec, it might be a very good plan; 
in fact, it would probably be an exceedingly good 
plan. It may be that we are regarding these mat- 
ters, not as of principle, but as of self-interest. 
But surely it is a poor rule that does not work both 
ways, or rather they are poor men who refuse to 
apply a rule both ways. 

For the last time I ask: do we believe in free- 
dom? Many of our English-speaking ancestors 
came to this country in search of it. They came 
not simply to be clothed and fed, to lay up bank 



316 THE CLASH 

balances and die, but to make homes where they 
and their children might live in free communion 
with the thoughts and habits of life which were 
dearer than others because they were their own. 
Freedom in that sense, we, their descendants 
have to-day. Have we obtained it only by the 
destruction of the freedom of others? Must 
French-Canadians pay for English-Canadian 
freedom by the loss of their own? Is Eng- 
lish culture to be built around the lakes and plains 
of Ontario and Manitoba, even as Teutonic cul- 
ture is being built around the mountains and val- 
leys of Alsace and Lorraine — only when French 
culture is smothered out? That may be Germany's 
way, but it is not Britain's. There are signs 
that even Germany is seeing the error of her way; 
for since the war a German chancellor has declared 
(on the authority of Mr. Asquith) in favour of 
"giving the various races the chance of free evolu- 
tion along the lines of their mother tongues and of 
national individuality." Mr. Asquith in repeating 
the remark, cynically suggested that "apparently 
this principle is to be applied — I suppose on ap- 
proved Prussian lines — both to Poland and to Bel- 
gium"; but even the declaration has value. It 
means that Germany is at least awakening to a 
realisation of the hopelessness and heartlessness of 
the school crucible. But Germany will find it 
difficult to acquire Britain's sense of freedom, for 
it lies essentially in British spirit. Empires have 
been built upon conquests of territories and States ; 



IN REVIEW 317 

the British Empire as well as others. The differ- 
ence lies in this: Britain after conquest removed 
the old casing and substituted for it her own; but 
the new casing, the British State, has been charged 
with protecting the encased ; the national thoughts 
and national habits of mind have been preserved 
and left free for development within the land ac- 
quired. That is the distinction between "Britain's 
Way" and "The Other." That is the essence of 
Britain's sense of freedom. I would, if I could, 
write it indelibly in the minds of all who have in- 
herited Britain's responsibilities. 

Too seldom do we stop to analyse the real mean- 
ing of these things, too often do we play with the 
words "freedom" and "liberty" and their equiva- 
lents. For many they have become mere catch- 
words. But when men's liberties are in peril, these 
concepts are weighed in careful balances. General 
Smuts is one of the men who had reason to weigh. 
He was introduced by General French to the Lords 
and Commoners of Great Britain, on the occa- 
sion to which I have before referred, "as a great 
commander and leader of men." Notwithstanding 
"the consummate bravery and ability" with which 
General Smuts commanded the Boer forces in the 
South African war, with — to use General French's 
words — "disadvantage in the way of numbers, 
arms, transport equipment, and supply," he was 
compelled to yield. The Boers lost freedom of 
State ; and to-day are loyal to Britain. Why? By 
British hands the Boers lost State freedom, but by 



318 THE CLASH 

British hands they retained freedom for the 
thoughts and habits of life which were dearer than 
others, because they were their own. That is the 
secret of Britain's success in Imperialism. But let 
us have General Smut's words, expressing his con- 
cept of the spirit which, animating the British Em- 
pire, compels the loyalty of those who have become 
British by conquest. He told the Lords and Com- 
moners of the United Kingdom: "What I feel in 
regard to all the empires of the past, and even in 
regard to the United States, is that the effort has 
always been towards forming one nation. All the 
empires we have known in the past and that exist 
tc-day are founded on the idea of assimilation, of 
trying to force human material into one mould. 
Your whole idea and basis is entirely different. You 
do not want to standardise the nations of the British 
Empire; you want to develop them towards 
greater, fuller nationality." 

After all, it is a very old principle which Gen- 
eral Smuts admires; a very old principle which 
the English-speaking British of Ontario and Mani- 
toba have defied and the French-speaking British 
of Quebec have applied. But let me state its 
application to the clash of nationalities in Canada, 
in words of another, W. S. Bullock, who at one 
time was a Protestant clergyman, but on the 
occasion referred to was, as representative of 
Sheflford, moving a rather famous resolution 
in the Quebec Legislature protesting against 
Ontario^s action on the bi-lingual question. 



IN REVIEW 319 

Mr. Bullock is from the home of what has 
been named "The Tragedy of Quebec," the 
Eastern Townships, and ought to know its condi- 
tions as well as its tragedians. These are his words : 
"And speaking in my own name personally as a 
descendant of that noble band of Empire Loyal- 
ists, who left their homes in the New England 
States in order to remain under the British flag, 
and who came and united their lot in the Province 
of Quebec, with the French-Canadians of this 
province, speaking in this House as a representa- 
tive of the Protestant minority in the Province of 
Quebec, and speaking in this House as a child of 
the bi-lingual school, and as a father of children 
who at this moment are attending bi-lingual 
schools, I simply wish to say to our friends in On- 
tario : Remember in all your legislation the great- 
est word that ever fell from the lips of the great 
Head of the Christian Church — Whatsoever ye 
would that men should do unto you, do ye likewise 
unto them' — for this is the law, the spirit of all 
true law, the spirit of the law of the British Em- 
pire and the spirit of the law of the Dominion of 
Canada." 

Mothers had pleaded that their children be not 
forced into an alien mould ; strong men had cursed 
the humiliation to which they were subjected in a 
land which for 300 years had been the native land 
of their race; school-less children had strid- 
ently protested that come what may they would 
walk in their parent's national footsteps. Devout 



320 THE CLASH 

clergy had sought the intervention of God on be- 
half of a people whose one sin was a desire to have 
their children carry on what they in all conscience 
believed to be the most desirable in human life. 
And all had been in vain. Tighter still were drawn 
the lines of restriction. School trustees were 
haled into court and fined $500 for the crime of 
having permitted religious instruction in the 
language of Breboeuf and Lalement; and this in 
the land where Breboeuf and Lalement had laid 
down their French lives for the cause of Chris- 
tianity; as a last resort, the dire threat of the 
confiscation of home, was held before a helpless 
people. Repression could go no further and 
spare human life. French-Canadian Catholic 
entreaties and protests had failed to move 
English-Canadian Protestant hearts. And then 
Bullock, an English-Canadian, a son of the 
Loyalists, a former Baptist minister, a man living 
in daily contact with the French-Canadian people, 
raised his voice in the Quebec Legislature and 
asked his co-religionists and compatriots of On- 
tario in Christ's name to give Christian charity. 

Mr. Bullock's appeal was made many months 
ago and — it was futile. If it caused twinges 
of the Christian conscience of Ontario, they 
were not visible in the words of its press and 
hustings. God has many attributes from which 
men have ever selected, according to their disposi- 
tions. Differences in religion have become differ- 
ences in emphasis. The learned Dean Inge tells 



IN REVIEW 321 

us that the exercise of "justice, mercy, and sym- 
pathy," are the distinguishing characteristics of the 
Christian; but those directing the policy of On- 
tario against the French-Canadians — proceeding 
ostensibly on religious lines — have chosen to 
imitate God's power rather than God's love. Mr. 
Bullock's plea for the application of the Golden 
Rule, so far from being accepted, raised only a 
raucous cry of protest against the interference of 
Quebec. The press has persistently maintained 
that there is no oppression in Ontario — and per- 
haps has believed it. "The great inlet by which 
a coulour for oppression has entered into the world, 
is by one man's pretending to determine concerning 
the happiness of another," said Edmund Burke. 
Men invariably fail to recognise their own tyran- 
nies. Ever has the Golden Rule been accepted by 
Christian and non-Christian men as a test of fair 
conduct. Can we say that if we English-Cana- 
dians were the minority in Ontario and French-Ca- 
nadians the majority, we would have them do unto 
us what we are doing unto them? We have not 
said so, nor are we likely to say so — and by the 
Golden Rule stand convicted. 

"The good old rule sufificeth us, the simple plan 
That they should take who have the power, and they should 
keep \yho can." 

It may not be considered too much to say that 
Ontario's attitude on this question is summed up in 
the following words: "The State is self-sufficient; 
self-regard is its appointed duty." And yet these 



322 THE CLASH 

are the words of Dr. Rumelin, Chancellor of the 
University of Tubingen, written in expression of 
Germany's policy. Surely the same idea was ex- 
pressed by the "Toronto Star," when (May 9, 
1916) it said: "There is no solution of the bi-lin- 
gual problem except the assertion and maintenance 
of complete Provincial control. Any attempt at 
dictation or interference from without can pro- 
duce nothing but confusion and ill-feeling. The 
Province must be left free not only to enforce its 
own laws, but to apply them to special cases." 

And this brings us to the second part of Mr. Bul- 
lock's plea — for it is two-fold — the appeal on Brit- 
ish grounds. While each man is free to interpret 
Christian teachings for himself, free to reject them 
altogether, free to refuse to regulate his private 
and public conduct by them, British men in their 
corporate action may not deliberately refuse to 
apply Britain's cardinal principle of polity. "Here 
lies the difference between the British constitution 
and other forms of government, namely, that 
liberty is its end, its use, its designation, drift and 
scope as much as grinding corn is the use of a 
mill," said John Adams in 1766 — and the test of 
liberty is, to repeat again the words of Lord Acton 
— "the amount of security enjoyed by minorities." 
We cannot be un-British in spirit and permanently 
remain a part of Britain. Our conduct has not 
yet gone before the world's review, and when it 
does, remembering Toynbee's words, "where a 
minority has clung to its native speech, it has been 



IN REVIEW 323 

allowed to retain it," we cannot, in all conscience, 
have it added — except in Ontario and Manitoba. 
Nor must we overlook the consequence of our 
refusal to abide by the arbitrament of the Golden 
Rule and the spirit of British justice. It is an im- 
mutable law that the majority as well as the min- 
ority, the strong as well as the weak (English-Ca- 
nadians as well as French-Canadians), must each 
in its way suffer the violation of man's proper rela- 
tion to man. As A. Maude Royden tells us in 
"Towards a Lasting Settlement": "To crush out 
all those who have the right to exist, but not the 
power to enforce that right, is to commend to one's 
own lips, not the 'choice wine' of humanity, but — 

The bitter dregs of woe 
■ Which ever from the oppressed to the oppressor flow." 

Books of Reference 

Rt. Hon. J. C. Smuts, P.C, War Time Speeches. Hod- 
der & Stoughton. 

The Hon. N. A. Belcourt, Canadian Club Address. 
Quebec Telegraph Co. 

Canada Year Book. King's Printer. 

Vicount Bryce and Others, The War of Democracy. 
Doubleday, Page & Co. 

Charles Langlois, The Truth, Nothing but the Truth, 
(pamphlet). "Le Devoir." 



INDEX 



Aberdeen Chamber of Commerce, 

resolution of, 94. 
Acadians, 48. 
Acton, Lord, 25, 258. 
" " Letters to Mary 

Gladstone, Ref. 
Chap. XIV. 

Adams, John, 322. 
Adier, Felix, The World Crisis 
and its Meaning, Ref. Chap. I. 
Agriculture, beautiful and strenu- 
ous religion, 166. 
" Ontario and Quebec, 

151. 
Agricultural missionaries, 165. 
Alexander of Macedon, 190. 
Alsace, France allowed German 
language in, 206. 
" Germany eliminated study 
of French from schools, 
206. 
" use of German tongue in, 
206. 
Alsace-Lorraine under German 

rule, Ref. Chap. XL 
Alsace and Lorraine, 92, 294, 316. 
Alsacians and Lorrainers, be- 
came French, 206. 
AlthoflF, Herr, 86, 121. 
American Civil War, 20. 
Colonies, 300. 
influence, 142, 143. 
Revolution, 254, 255, 
273, 274, 294. 
Anglican Liturgy, 259. 
Anglo-German Problem, The, Ref. 

Chaps. Vin, XH, XIII. 
Anglo-Saxon-Americanism, 10. 



Architecture, American influence, 

144. 
Aristotle, advice to Alexander, 

190. 
Armenians, persecuted, 196. 
Aryan race, 63. 
Athenians, 191. 
Atlas du Canada, Ref. Chap. IX. 

Baby family, 51. 

Baby, Francis, 50. 

Balboa, Capt. del Cano, 77. 

Barker, Ernest, a fellow of Ox- 
ford, 180. 

Beddoe, Dr., The Races of Brit- 
ain, Ref. Chap. V. 

Belcourt, Senator Hon. N, A., 257, 
Canadian Club Address, Ref. 
Chap. XVI. 

Beneath the Surface of Things, 
169-189. 

Bi-Lingual Schools in Canada, 
Ref. Chap. XII. 

Bi-Lingual Teaching in Belgian 
Schools, Ref. Chap. XL 

Birth rate, Quebec-Ontario, 214. 

Bismarck, 30. 

Bon, Gustave Le, The Psychology 
of the Great War, Ref. Chap. 
XII. 

Boers, 297. 

Bourassa, M. Henri, 224, 247, 278, 
280. 

Bourinot, Sir John, Canada, Ref. 
Chap. VIII. 

Breboeuf, Martyrdom of, 9. 
" and Lalement, 54. 

Brierly, J. M., Ourselves and the 
Universe, Ref. Chap. VII. 



325 



326 



THE CLASH 



British Army, 268, 269, 270. 
British North America, 1763-1867, 

Ref. Chap. II. 
British North America Act, 188, 

196, 220, 265, 315. 
Britain's Way and The Other, 
Britain's, 14-27, The Other, 28- 
42. 
Bronze Age, 67. 

Bryce, Viscount and otners. The 
War of Democracy, Ref. Chap. 
XVI. 
Buckle, Henry Thomas, History of 
Civilisation 
in England, 
Ref. Chap. 
XIII. 
" " " theory, ef- 

fect, clim- 
ate, food, 
soil, 235, 
248. 
Bullock, W. S., 318, 319, 322. 
Burke, Edmund, debating the Que- 
bec Bill, 17. 
Burns, C. Delisle, The Morality 

of Nations, Ref. Chap. I. 
Burpee, Lawrence, Ref. Chap. IV. 
Burroughs, Edward, 253. 
Buxton, A, H., Indian Moral In- 
struction and Caste 
Problems, Ref. Chap 
XL 
" C. P., Towards a Lasting 
Settlement, Ref Chap 
I. 
Canada Year Book, 125, Ref. 

Chaps. VIII. IX, XIV, XVI. 
Canadian Army, 267-270, 281, 282. 
Canadian Constitution, 220. 
Canadian Constitutional Develop- 
ment, Ref. Chap. II, XIV. 
Canadian Trade, 96. 



Canadian Types of the Old Re- 
gime, Ref Chaps. IV, XIII. 
Cardinal Begin, 252. 
Carrol, Charles, 277. 
Cartier, M., A Father of Con- 
federation, 187. 
Census, 313. 

Returns, 251. 
Champlain, voyages of, 9. 
Channing. Edward, and Marion 
Lansing, The Story of the Great 
Lakes, Ref. Chap. IV. 
Chase, Samuel, 277. 
Civil war, 284. 
Clay Belt, The Great, 146, 147, 

168. 
Cody, Archdeacon, 258. 
Colby, C. W., Canadian Types of 
the Old Regime, Ref. Chaps. IV, 
XIII. 
Columbus, Christopher, 76. 
Commercialism, 141. 
Compulsion, stories of, 191, 192. 
Conduct of Life, The, Ref. Chap. 

VII. 
Conscription, 288, 289. 
Constitutional rubbish, 37. 
Corwin, Edward S., The French 
Policy and the American Alli- 
ance, Ref. Chap. XIII. 
Cote, Suzor, 137. 
Counties of Ontario, The, Ref. 

Chap. IV. 
Coureurs-de-bois, 157. 

" " " adventures of, 

192. 
Creighton. M., D.D., Persecution 
and Tolerance, Ref. Chap. XIV. 
Cromer, Lord, 3. 
Crusades, The, 181. 

Danish barbarians, 69. 



INDEX 



327 



Dawes, T. R., Bi-lingual Teaching 
in Belgium Schools, Ref. Chap. 
XL 

Dawson, W. H., The Evolution 
of Modern Germany, 209, 218, 
Ref. Chap. XII. 

Democracy, 171. 

Denmark, 197, 198. 

King Frederick VII, 
197. 

D'Estaing, Baron, 277. 

DeTocqueville, 26. 

Development of the European 
Nations, The, Ref. Chap. X, 196. 

Dolier and Galinee, 44. 

Dollard, 57. 

Dominions Royal Commission Re- 
port, Ref. Chap. IX. 

Dorion, M., 186. 

Drake, Sir Francis, 77. 

Dufour, Jean, 49. 

Dulutte and Tonty, 56. 

Durham, Lord, 310. 

Earl Grey, 305. , ' 

Education, 99-124. 

" removed from party 

politics, 111. 
Egerton, H. E. and W. L. Grant, 
Canadian Constitutional De- 
velopment, Ref. Chaps. II, XIV. 
English Canadians, greater apti- 
tude for 
trade and 
finance, 139. 
* " " have lost love 

for the 

land, 148. 
" " deserting the 

land, 166. 
" " farming mere 

trade, mea- 
sured by 
dollars, 166. 



English language and world's 

commerce, 98. 
English- and French-Canadians 

have common ancestry, 70. 
Essex, first settled by the French, 

49. 
Eucken, 42. 

Eugenic laws, violation of, 164. 
Evolution of Modern Germany, 

The, Ref. Chap. XII. 

Fallon, Bishop, 251. 

Ferland, I'abbe, 70. 

Feudal class, 181. 

Financial Operations, source of 

table, 89. 
Flamingant, 203. 
Food, crying need for, 228. 
Fox, Charles, 264. 
l^ranklin, Benjamin, 277. 
French Canada and the War, 

267-292. 
French-Canadian Christian names, 
272. 
" " enlistment, 273. 

" " ethnology of, 71. 

" " greater aptitude 

for the finer 
arts, 140. 
" " handicapped by 

lack of credit, 
88. 
" " history and 

traditions, 9. 
" " in business, 87. 

" " industrious, 

quick - handed 
artisan, 88. 
" * " willingness to 
settle misinter- 
preted, 164. 
Norman by 

birth or parent- 
age, etc., 71. 



328 



THE CLASH 



French-Canadians origin of mi- 
grants, table, 
72. 
" " percentage of 

country's popu- 
lation, 87. 
" " scientists, sav- 

ants and lit- 
terateurs, 134. 
" " sculptors, artists 

and musicians, 
137. 
and English- 
have common 
ancestry, 70. 
" " bravery and per- 

severance, 57. 
" " nationality, 3. 

" in Northern On- 

tario, 48. 
" " in Ontario, num- 

ber of, 313. 
" " instructed in 

a g r i c u Itural 
pursuits, 165 
" " practically all 

Roman Catho- 
lics, 251. 
" " wherever voy- 

ageurs made 
their trading 
posts, 48. 
" " will to preserve, 

14. 
French language, corruption of, 
129. 
" Regime, old, 4. 
" Roman Catholic priests, 
in the ranks, 290, 291. 
Frechette, Louis, 134. 
Frontenac, Battle of and Bol- 
lard, 9. 



French .Policy and the American 
Alliance, The, Ref. Chap. XIII. 

Galinee, The Map of, 44. 

Garibaldi, 184. 

General Amherst, 51. 

Getting into Parliament and After, 
Ref. Chaps. VIII, XIII. 

Germany, fails to Germanise, 209. 

Goethe, 106. 

Golden rule, 321. 

Goidelic or Cyrmic, 66. 

Gospel of God's land, 165. 

Gouin, Sir Lomer, 123. 

Gouverneur Morris, 238. 

Grant, Madison, The Passing of 
the Great Race, Ref. Chaps. V, 
IX. 

Grau, M., 42. 

Great Lakes of Canada, mapping 
the, 44. 

Great War, the, 267-271. 

Great War Veterans' Associa- 
tion, 280. 

Haldane; Lord, 114. 

" Viscount, The Conduct 

of Life, Ref. Chap. 
VII. 
Hazen, Charles D., 35. 

" " " Alsace-Loraine 

Under Ger- 
man Rule, 
Ref. Chap. 
XI. 
Prof., of Columbia, 205. 
Headlam, J. W. and others. Unity 
of Western 

Civilisation, Ref. 
Chap. VII. 
" " 103. 
Hebert, Louis, 80. 

" Philippe, the sculptor, 305. 



INDEX 



329 



Hellenism, mission of, 209. 

Hennepin, first to see Niagara 
Falls, 56. 

History of Civilisation in Eng- 
land, Ref. Chap. XHI. 

Hobhouse, L. T., 185, 265, Ques- 
tions of War and Peace, Ref. 
Chaps, HI, X. 

Hollweg, von Bethmann, 209. 

Holstein. 196. 

Homo-europeus, 64, 149. 

Homogeneity and Something Bet- 
ter, 234-249. 

Hovelaque, Emile, The Deeper 
Causes of the War, Ref. Chap. 
HI. 

Hudon. M. Theophile, 131 

Hungarian diet, 5. 

Hymn of Hate, 263. 

Imperial Germany, Ref. Chaps. 

XI, xn. 

In Review, 293-323. 

Indian Moral Instruction and 

Caste Problems, Ref. Chap. XI. 
Inge, Dean, 320. 
Interpretation of History, The, 

Ref. Chap. XIV. 
Investments, table, 89. 

James, Dr. C. C, SO, Ref. Chap. 

IV. 
Jesuit, Relations, 43. 

Estates Bill, 240. 
Joffred, Abbot, 101. 
Jordan, Dr., 250. 
Jusserand, M., 116. 
Jutland, 66. 

Khan, Kublai, 76. 
King Charles II, 253. 
King's Printer, The Canada Year 
Book, Ref. Chaps. VIII, IX. 



King's Printer, The, Ottawa, 
Reports of the Royal Commis- 
sion on Industrial and Techni- 
cal Education, Ref. Chap. VII. 

Kossuth, the great, 5. 

Lacedaemonians, 39. 

Lac la Clie, 46. 

Lalement, Martyrdom of, 9. 

Land grievance, 226, 227, 

Landmarks of Toronto, The, 

52, Ref. Chap. IV. 
Langlois, Charles, The Truth, 

Nothing hut the Truth, Ref 

Chap. XVI. 
Lapointe resolution, 38. 
La Salle. 9, 56, 192. 
La Societe dii Parler francais au 

Canada, 130. 
Laurier Sir Wilfrid, 257, 304. 
Laval University, 102, 113, 121. 
Lecky, W. E. H., 159 
Les Relations, 58. 
Live stock, tables, Ontario and 

Quebec, 152, 153. 
Locke, John, 259. 
Lord Acton, The History of Free- 
dom, Ref. Chap. 11. 
Lortie, M. I'abbe S. A., 71. 
Low, Sydney, The Spirit of the 

Allied Nations, Ref. Chap. I. 
Lucas, Sir C. P., 310. 
Luther, Martin, 182. 

Magellan, Ferdinand, 77. 
Manitoba, birth rate, 215. 
Maria Theresa, 15. 
Martyrs, early French, sufferings 

of, 54, 55, 56, 
Mazzini, Joseph, 183, 184, 197. 
Mediterranean race, 65, 67, 75. 
Megalomania, 126. 
Migrants, origin of, 72. 



23 



330 



THE CLASH 



Migration, balancing, 48. 
Mill, John Stewart, 82. 
Missionaries, early French, 54. 

" sufferings of, 54, 55 

Mixed marriages, 215. 
Mohammedanism, 8. 
Mount St. Louis College, 272. 
Mowat, Sir Oliver, 298. 
Muir, Ramsay, NationaMstn ond 

Internationalism, Ref. Chaps. 

I, XL 
Miiller, Max 179. 
Munro, William Bennett, The 

Seignicral System in Canada, 

Ref. Chap. V. 
Miinsterberg, Hugo, Tomorrozv, 

Ref. Chap. L 

McCabe. Joseph, The Soul of 

Europe, Ref. Chap. XL 
McGill University, 122. 
McNeil, Archbishop, 257. 

Napoleon, 80. 

Nation, what is a, 5. 

National sports, 143. 

Nationalism and Internationalism, 
Ref. Chap. XL 

Nationality, a mental condition, 
237. 

Nationality in Modern History, 
Ref. Chap. V. 

Nationality, spirit of, 191, 192. 
" factors of, 4. 

" is there French-Cana- 

dian? 3-13. 
" what is it? 3. 

Nauman, Freidrich, Central Eu- 
rope, Ref. Chap. L 

Navigation, early inland, 53. 

New Europe, The, Ref. Chap. 
XL 3. 

New Ontario, 147, 162, 163. 



Newspapers, metropolitan dailies, 

172, 173. 
Nicolet, Jean, 56 
Nordau, Max, 30, 31, 

" " The Interpretation 

of History, Ref. 
Chap. XIV. 
Nordic or Baltic race, 64. 
Norman invasion, 69. 
Normans, 71, 73. 
Normandy, ethnology of the 

French-Canadian, 7L 
Northern Ontario, 147-148. 

Ontario, early French settlement, 
47. 
" geography of the province 
oL 43. 
Quebec birth rate, 214. 
regulations governing set- 
tlement, 228. 
rural population, decline 

in. 148. 
the, that was carved out 

of Quebec, 43-59. 
argument for limitation, 
37. 
On the Art of Writing, Ref. 

Chap. V. 
Orders, represented in the ranks, 

290. 
Ourselves and the Universe, 108, 

Ref. Chap. VIL 
Osborne, Prof., 62. 
Overseas forces, figures, 267. 

Parallels, A Study in, 211-233. 
Parkman, Francis, 44, 58, 275, 276. 
Passing of the Great Race, The, 

Ref. Chaps. V, IX. 
Persecution and Tolerance, 259, 

Ref. Chap. XIV. 
Peter of Blois, 101. 



INDEX 



331 



Philologists, 179. 

Physical degeneracy in parts of 

Ontario, 164. 
Plowman, Piers, 116. 
Poland, 225. 
Politicians, 171, 172. 
Politics, 171. 

Population, density of, 241, 242. 
Preiss, Jacques, 92. 
Prince von Biilow, 23, 34, 39, 86, 
216, 233. 
" " " Imperial Ger- 
many, Ref. 
Chaps. XI, 
XIII. 
Privy Council, 133, 221, 294. 
Proclamation, dividing province 

Upper Canada, 51. 

Protestant minority in Quebec, 

autonomy, educational affairs, 

265. 

Protestant Schools in Quebec, 314. 

Phychology of the Great War, 

Ref. Chap. XII, 212. 
Publishers, Appleton, Ref. Chap. I. 
" Belle and Cockburn, 

Ref. Chap. IV. 
Black, Ref. Chap. I. 
Briggs, Ref. Chaps. 
VIII, XIII. 
" Constable, Ref. Chaps. 

II, XI. 

" Cambridge Press, Ref. 

Chap. XI. 
Cassel, Ref. Chap. III. 
" Clarendon, Ref. Chap. 

XI. 
Dent, Ref. Chap. I. 
Dodd, Mead & Co., 

Ref. Chap. XI. 
Doubleday, Page & 
Co., Ref. Chap. XVI. 
" Button, Ref. Chaps. I, 

III, XI. 



Publishers, Harpers, Ref. Chap. 

III. 

" Harvard University 

Press, Ref. Chap. V. 

Hearst, Ref. Chap. 

XIII. 

" Heinemann, Ref. Chap. 

III. 
" Hodder and Stough- 

ton, Ref. Chap. XVI. 
Holt, Ref. Chaps. Ill, 

IV, XI, XIII. 
Hope, Ottawra, Ref. 
Chap. IV. 
" Houghton, Mifflin & 

Co., Ref. Chaps, I, 
XI. 
Knopf, Ref. Chap. I. 
" L'Action Sociale Limi- 

tee, Ref. Chap. V. 
" Le Devoir, Ref. Chap. 

XVI. 
Little, Brown Co., Ref. 
Chap. IV 
" Longman.s, Ref. Chaps. 

IX, XI, XIV. 
" Macmillan, Ref. Chaps. 

I, II, IV, V. XI, 
XII. 

Milford, Ref. Chap. 
VII. 
" Musson, Ref. Chaps. 

II. IV, VII, XIV. 
" Nelson, Ref. Chaps. 

VIII, XII, XIII. 
" Princeton University 

Press, Ref. Chap. 

XIII. 
" Putnam, Ref. Chaps. 

I, IV, VII. 
" Robertson, Ref. Chap. 

IV. 
" Scribners, Ref. Chap 

V. 



332 



THE CLASH 



Publishers, The King's Printer, 
Ref. Chaps. VII, 
VIII, IX. 
" Wyman & Sons, Ref. 

Chap. IX. 
T. Fisher Unwin, Ref. 
Chaps. Ill, VIII. 

Quebec Act, 17, 19, 47, 264, 274, 
298. 
" education removed from 

party politics. 111. 
" educational system, 225. 
" led Ontario in technical 

instruction, 122. 
" protestant schools, 314. 
" rural population, increase 
in, 184. 
Quebec-Ontario, birth rate, 214. 
Quiller- Couch, Sir Arthur, On 
Art of Writing, Ref. Chap. V, 
68, 81, 116. 

Race Superiority, 60-83. 

Races of Britain, The, 79, Ref. 

Chap. V. 
Racial homogeneity, 40. 
Rameau, M. E., 70. 
Recollect Fathers, loaned church 

to Presbyterians, 296. 
Regulation No. 17, couched in 

obscure language, 133. 
Religion, inextricably tied up in 

national problem, 263. 
Religions, census of, 251. 
Religious orders, represented in 

the ranks, 290, 291. 
Renan, 11. 
Remedial bill, 240. 
Reports of the Royal Commission 

on Industrial and Technical 

Education, Ref. Chap. VII. 
Rest days, lighten labour of farm, 

165. 



Riel, expelled from Parliament, 
239. 

Rigsraad, at Copenhagen, 197. 

Rivard, M. Adjutor, 129. 

Robertson, J. M., 11, 25, Ref. 
Chap. III. 

Robertson, John Ross, 46, 52, 247. 

Roche, W. J., 163. 

Roman Catholic Church sternly 
forbids race suicide, 214. 

Roman Catholic clergy, agricul- 
tural missionaries, 165. 

Romance of Words, The, Ref. 
Chap. VII. 

Rose, J. Holland, llie Develop- 
ment of the European Nations, 
Ref. Chap. X. 

Ross, Sir George W., Getting 
into Parliament and After, Ref. 
Chaps. Vill, XIII. 

Royden, A. Maude, 323. 

Rule No. 17, 34, 58, 133, 207, 
208, 221. 

Ruraelin, Dr., 322. 

Rural population, increase Que- 
bec, decline Ontario, 148. 

Ryerson, Egerton, 298. 

Sarolea, Charles, The Anglo-Ger 

man Problem, Ref. Chaps. VIII, 

XII, XIII. 
Schleswig, 196. 
School strikes, 225, 226. 
School attendance, 125. 
Scrap of paper, 2i7. 
Search for the Western Sea, Ref. 

Chap. IV. 
Seton-Watson, R. W., 22. 
Settlement, regulations governing 

Ontario, 228. 
Simcoe, John Greaves, 46. 
Sir John Bourinot, 134. 
Sir Lomer Gouin, 123, 257, 304. 



INDEX 



333 



Sissons, C. B., Bi-Lingual Schools 

in Canada, Ref. Chap. XII. 
Skulls, Nordic, Mediterranean, 

Alpine, 7. 
Smuts, Rt. Hon. J. C, War Time 

Speeches, Ref. Chap. XVI. 
Soil, affect of climate, food, 236. 
Sotil of Europe, The, Ref. Chap. 

XI. 
Sutherland, J. C, 225, 314. 
Sport, American influence, 143. 
Spiritual truths, 262. 
Smuts, General, 297, 303, 317, 318. 
State, what is the, 170. 
titcinmetz, Charles P., America 

and the New Epoch, Ref. Chap. 

III. 
Sione Age, The Men of the Old, 

62. 
Sulpician missionaries, 44. 

Table, origin of migrants, 72. 

" live stock, 152, 153. 
Technical instruction, Quebec led 
Ontario, 122. 
schools, 122, 123. 
The Futility of Force, 190-210. 
The History of Freedom, Lord 

Acton, Ref. Chap. 11. 
The Seat of Trouble, 146-168. 
The Trade Argument. 84-98. 
Thurlow, Lord, Z7. 
Tilby, A, Wyatt, British North 
America, 1862-1867, Ref. Chap. 
IL 
Tolerance, 250-266 
Toronto Press, 283. 
Towards a lasting settlement, 11, 

323. 
Toynbce, Arnold, 3, 2i7. 

" " Nationality and 

the War, Ref. 
Chaps. I, X. 



Toynbee, Arnold, The New Eu- 
rope, Ref. 
Chaps. I, XI. 

Treaty of Paris, 276, 300. 

Treaty of Westphalia, 205. 

Treitschke, 30, 31, 36, 177. 

Tweedie, The Hon., 307. 

Unity of Western Civilisation, 
180. 

Upper Canada, House of As- 
sembl)', 50. 

Upper Canada, Map of the Pro- 
vince of, 45. 

Vaughan, Crawford, 288. 
Verendrye, Pierre La, 9, 45, 157, 

192. 
Versailles, decrepit Government 

at, 17. 
Vikings, descendants of, 73. 
Vineland, discovered, 76. 
Viviani, M., 132. 
Voluntaryism, 287, 288. 

Wakefield, Sir Charles, 95. 
War and Democracy, The, 5, 22, 

Ref. Chap. XI. 
War Time Speeches, Ref. Chap. 

xvr. 

Weaver, E. P., The Counties of 
Ontario, Ref. Chap. IV. 

Willison, Sir John, 160, 283. 

Weekley, Ernest, The Romance 
of Words. Ref. Chap. VII. 

Zimmern, Alfred E., 23, 303, Ref. 
Chap. II. 
" and others, 
The War 
and De- 
mocracy, 
Ref. Chap. 
XI. 



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